ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
AND  THE  UNION 


NATHAN1 


STEPHEN  SON 


/^BERKELEY 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

0NDERGRAD. 
LIBRARY 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN   EDITION 

VOLUME  29 

THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD  R.  LOMER 

CHARLES  W.  JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT   EDITORS 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
Photograph  by  Mathew  Brady,  Washington,  February  23,  1863. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 
AND  THE  UNION 

A  CHRONICLE  OF  THE 

EMBATTLED  NORTH 
BY  NATHANIEL  W.  STEPHENSON 


NEW  HAVEN:  YALE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

TORONTO:  GLASGOW.  BROOK   &   CO. 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY   MILFORD 

OXFORD   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by  Yale  University  Press 


SB 


TO 
CHARLES  JACOB   LIVINGOOD 


PREFACE 

IN  spite  of  a  lapse  of  sixty  years,  the  historian 
who  attempts  to  portray  the  era  of  Lincoln  is  still 
faced  with  almost  impossible  demands  and  still 
confronted  with  arbitrary  points  of  view.  It  is 
out  of  the  question,  in  a  book  so  brief  as  this 
must  necessarily  be,  to  meet  all  these  demands  or 
to  alter  these  points  of  view.  Interests  that  are 
purely  local,  events  that  did  not  with  certainty 
contribute  to  the  final  outcome,  gossip,  as  well  as 
the  mere  caprice  of  the  scholar — these  must  ob 
viously  be  set  aside. 

The  task  imposed  upon  the  volume  resolves 
itself,  at  bottom,  into  just  two  questions:  Why 
was  there  a  war?  Why  was  the  Lincoln  Govern 
ment  successful?  With  these  two  questions  al 
ways  in  mind  I  have  endeavored,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  select  and  consolidate  the  pertinent  facts;  on 
the  other,  to  make  clear,  even  at  the  cost  of 


IX 


x  PREFACE 

explanatory  comment,  their  relations  in  the  histori 
cal  sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  This  purpose  has 
particularly  governed  the  use  of  biographical 
matter,  in  which  the  main  illustration,  of  course, 
is  the  career  of  Lincoln.  Prominent  as  it  is  here 
made,  the  Lincoln  matter  all  bears  in  the  last 
analysis  on  one  point — his  control  of  his  support. 
On  that  the  history  of  the  North  hinges.  The 
personal  and  private  Lincoln  it  is  impossible  to 
present  within  these  pages.  The  public  Lincoln, 
including  the  character  of  his  mind,  is  here  the 
essential  matter. 

The  bibliography  at  the  close  of  the  volume  in 
dicates  the  more  important  books  which  are  at 
the  reader's  disposal  and  which  it  is  unfortunate 
not  to  know. 

NATHANIEL  W.  STEPHENSON. 

CHARLESTON,  S.  C., 
March,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

I.    THE    TWO   NATIONS   OF   THE   RE 
PUBLIC  Page  1 

II.    THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION  "  19 

III.  THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  "  40 

IV.  THE  CRISIS  "  59 
V.    SECESSION  "  81 

VI.    WAR  "  102 

VII.    LINCOLN^  "  126 

VIII.    THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  "  142 

IX.    THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  "  168 

X.    THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  "  192 

XL    NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  "  204 

XII.    THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE  "  224 

XIII.    THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  "  233 

XIV.    LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS  "  251 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  "  261 

INDEX  "  265 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Photograph  by  Mathew  Brady,   Washington, 

February  23,  1863.  Frontispiece 

STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 

Engraving  from  a  photograph  taken  about  1860.  Facing  page      20 

JAMES  BUCHANAN 

Drawing  from  a  photograph.  "         "        Jfi 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Photograph  by  Brady,  taken  at  the  time  of 
Lincoln's  Cooper  Institute  speech,  February 
27,  1860.  Lincoln  frequently  remarked  that 
this  portrait  and  the  Cooper  Institute  speech 
made  him  President.  "  "  64 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD 

Photograph  by  Brady.     In  the  collection  of 

L.  C.  Handy,  Washington.  "         "      110 

GROUP  OF  FURNITURE  FROM  LINCOLN'S 
HOUSE  IN  SPRINGFIELD 

In  the  collection  of  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia.  "  The  sofa,  work 
table,  and  chairs  were  formerly  in  the  possession 
of  Messrs.  Vanuxem  and  Potter,  lawyers,  of 
Philadelphia.  The  sofa,  which  is  of  mahogany 
veneer,  upholstered  with  hair  cloth,  was  made 
to  order  for  Lincoln,  he  being  unable  to  find  one 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 


ready  made  which  was  long  enough  for  him. 
When  Lincoln  left  Springfield,  Illinois,  for 
Washington,  much  of  the  furniture  of  his  house 
was  sold.  This  sofa  was  bought  for  $100  by 
Mr.  John  E.  Roll,  who  sold  it  to  the  Lincoln 
Memorial  Collection  of  Chicago."  —  Life  of 
Lincoln,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell.  Facing  page  128 

ORIGINAL  DRAFT  OF  LINCOLN'S  GETTYS 
BURG  ADDRESS 

Lincoln  held  this  copy  in  his  hand  while  speak 
ing.  The  first  page  is  written  in  ink,  on  White 
House  stationery  in  use  at  that  time;  the  second 
page  is  in  pencil  on  a  larger  sheet  of  paper.  Both 
sheets  are  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  Washing 
ton.  Reproduced  in  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address, 
by  Orton  H.  Carmichael.  "  "  UO 

EDWIN  M.  STANTON 

Photograph  by  Brady.  "         "      150 

GIDEON  WELLES.    Photograph  by  Brady. 

SALMON  P.  CHASE.     Photograph  by  Brady.         "         "     194 

THURLOW  WEED.     Photograph  by  Brady.     In 

the  collection  of  L.  C.  Handy,  Washington. 
HORACE  GREELEY.    Photograph  by  Sarony.       "         "     W 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

"THERE  is  really  no  Union  now  between  the 
North  and  the  South.  .  .  .  No  two  nations  upon 
earth  entertain  feelings  of  more  bitter  rancor  to 
ward  each  other  than  these  two  nations  of  the 
Republic." 

This  remark,  which  is  attributed  to  Senator 
Benjamin  Wade  of  Ohio,  provides  the  key  to  Amer 
ican  politics  in  the  decade  following  the  Compro 
mise  of  1850.  To  trace  this  division  of  the  people 
to  its  ultimate  source,  one  would  have  to  go  far 
back  into  colonial  times.  There  was  a  process  of 
natural  selection  at  work,  in  the  intellectual  and 
economic  conditions  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which  inevitably  drew  together  certain  types  and 
generated  certain  forces.  This  process  manifested 


2  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

itself  in  one  form  in  His  Majesty's  plantations  of 
the  North,  and  in  another  in  those  of  the  South. 
As  early  as  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  social  tendencies  of  the  two  regions  were  al 
ready  so  far  alienated  that  they  involved  differ 
ences  which  would  scarcely  admit  of  reconciliation. 
It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  these  differences  grad 
ually  were  concentrated  around  fundamentally 
different  conceptions  of  labor  —  of  slave  labor  in 
the  South,  of  free  labor  in  the  North. 

Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  fallacious 
than  the  notion  that  this  growing  antagonism  was 
controlled  by  any  deliberate  purpose  in  either 
part  of  the  country.  It  was  apparently  necessary 
that  this  Republic  in  its  evolution  should  proceed 
from  confederation  to  nationality  through  an  in 
termediate  and  apparently  reactionary  period  of 
sectionalism.  In  this  stage  of  American  history, 
slavery  was  without  doubt  one  of  the  prime  fac 
tors  involved,  but  sectional  consciousness,  with  all 
its  emotional  and  psychological  implications,  was 
the  fundamental  impulse  of  the  stern  events  which 
occurred  between  1850  and  1865. 

By  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
more  influential  Southerners  had  come  generally 
to  regard  their  section  of  the  country  as  a  distinct 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC    3 

social  unit.  The  next  step  was  inevitable.  The 
South  began  to  regard  itself  as  a  separate  political 
unit.  It  is  the  distinction  of  Calhoun  that  he 
showed  himself  toward  the  end  sufficiently  flexible 
to  become  the  exponent  of  this  new  political  im 
pulse.  With  all  his  earlier  fire  he  encouraged  the 
Southerners  to  withdraw  from  the  so-called  na 
tional  parties,  Whig  and  Democratic,  to  establish 
instead  a  single  Southern  party,  and  to  formu 
late,  by  means  of  popular  conventions,  a  single 
concerted  policy  for  the  entire  South. 

At  that  time  such  a  policy  was  still  regarded, 
from  the  Southern  point  of  view,  as  a  radical  idea. 
In  1851,  a  battle  was  fought  at  the  polls  between 
the  two  Southern  ideas  —  the  old  one  which  up 
held  separate  state  independence,  and  the  new  one 
which  virtually  acknowledged  Southern  national 
ity.  The  issue  at  stake  was  the  acceptance  or  the 
rejection  of  a  compromise  which  could  bring  no 
permanent  settlement  of  fundamental  differences. 

Nowhere  was  the  battle  more  interesting  than 
in  South  Carolina,  for  it  brought  into  clear  light 
that  powerful  Southern  leader  who  ten  years  later 
was  to  be  the  master-spirit  of  secession  —  Robert 
Barn  well  Rhett.  In  1851  he  fought  hard  to  revive 
the  older  idea  of  state  independence  and  to  carry 


4  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

South  Carolina  as  a  separate  state  out  of  the  Union. 
Accordingly  it  is  significant  of  the  progress  that 
the  consolidation  of  the  South  had  made  at  this 
date  that  on  this  issue  Rhett  encountered  general 
opposition.  This  difference  of  opinion  as  to  policy 
was  not  inspired,  as  some  historians  have  too  hast 
ily  concluded,  by  national  feeling.  Scarcely  any  of 
the  leaders  of  the  opposition  considered  the  Federal 
Government  supreme  over  the  State  Government. 
They  opposed  Rhett  because  they  felt  secession 
to  be  at  that  moment  bad  policy.  They  saw  that, 
if  South  Carolina  went  out  of  the  Union  in  1851, 
she  would  go  alone  and  the  solidarity  of  the  South 
would  be  broken.  They  were  not  lacking  in  sec 
tional  patriotism,  but  their  conception  of  the  best 
solution  of  the  complex  problem  differed  from  that 
advocated  by  Rhett.  Their  position  was  summed 
up  by  Langdon  Cheves  when  he  said,  "To  secede 
now  is  to  secede  from  the  South  as  well  as  from  the 
Union. "  On  the  basis  of  this  belief  they  defeated 
Rhett  and  put  off  secession  for  ten  years. 

There  is  no  analogous  single  event  in  the  history 
of  the  North,  previous  to  the  war,  which  reveals 
with  similar  clearness  a  sectional  consciousness. 
On  the  surface  the  life  of  the  people  seemed,  indeed, 
to  belie  the  existence  of  any  such  feeling.  The 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC    5 

Northern  capitalist  class  aimed  steadily  at  being 
non-sectional,  and  it  made  free  use  of  the  word 
national.  We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  all 
sorts  of  people  talked  of  national  institutions,  and 
that  the  term,  until  we  look  closely  into  the  mind 
of  the  person  using  it,  signifies  nothing.  Because 
the  Northern  capitalist  repudiated  the  idea  of 
sectionalism,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  set  up  any 
other  in  its  place.  Instead  of  accomplishing  any 
thing  so  positive,  he  remained  for  the  most  part  a 
negative  quantity. 

Living  usually  somewhere  between  Maine  and 
Ohio,  he  made  it  his  chief  purpose  to  regulate  the 
outflow  of  manufactures  from  that  industrial  re 
gion  and  the  inflow  of  agricultural  produce.  The 
movement  of  the  latter  eastward  and  northward, 
and  the  former  westward  and  southward,  repre 
sents  roughly  but  graphically  the  movement  of  the 
business  of  that  time.  The  Easterner  lived  in  fear 
of  losing  the  money  which  was  owed  him  in  the 
South.  As  the  political  and  economic  conditions 
of  the  day  made  unlikely  any  serious  clash  of 
interest  between  the  East  and  the  West,  he  had 
little  solicitude  about  his  accounts  beyond  the 
Alleghanies.  But  a  gradually  developing  hostility 
between  North  and  South  was  accompanied  by  a 


6  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

parallel  anxiety  on  the  part  of  Northern  capital  for 
its  Southern  investments  and  debts.  When  the 
war  eventually  became  inevitable,  $200,000,000 
were  owed  by  Southerners  to  Northerners.  For 
those  days  this  was  an  indebtedness  of  no  incon 
siderable  magnitude.  The  Northern  capitalists, 
preoccupied  with  their  desire  to  secure  this  ac 
count,  were  naturally  eager  to  repudiate  section 
alism,  and  talked  about  national  interests  with 
a  zeal  that  has  sometimes  been  misinterpreted. 
Throughout  the  entire  period  from  1850  to  1865, 
capital  in  American  politics  played  for  the  most 
part  a  negative  role,  and  not  until  after  the 
war  did  it  become  independent  of  its  Southern 
interests. 

For  the  real  North  of  that  day  we  must  turn  to 
those  Northerners  who  felt  sufficient  unto  them 
selves  and  whose  political  convictions  were  un 
biased  by  personal  interests  which  were  involved  in 
other  parts  of  the  country.  We  must  listen  to  the 
distinct  voices  that  gave  utterance  to  their  views, 
and  we  must  observe  the  definite  schemes  of  their 
political  leaders.  Directly  we  do  this,  the  fact 
stares  us  in  the  face  that  the  North  had  become  a 
democracy.  The  rich  man  no  longer  played  the 
role  of  grandee,  for  by  this  time  there  had  arisen 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC    7 

those  two  groups  which,  between  them,  are  the 
ruin  of  aristocracy  —  the  class  of  prosperous  labor 
ers  and  the  group  of  well-to-do  intellectuals.  Of 
these,  the  latter  gave  utterance,  first,  to  their  faith 
in  democracy,  and  then,  with  all  the  intensity  of 
partisan  zeal,  to  their  sense  of  the  North  as  the 
agent  of  democracy.  The  prosperous  laborers  ap 
plauded  this  expression  of  an  opinion  in  which  they 
thoroughly  believed  and  at  the  same  time  gave 
their  willing  support  to  a  land  policy  that  was 
typically  Northern. 

American  economic  history  in  the  middle  third 
of  the  century  is  essentially  the  record  of  a  struggle 
to  gain  possession  of  public  land.  The  opposing 
forces  were  the  South,  which  strove  to  perpetuate 
by  this  means  a  social  system  that  was  funda 
mentally  aristocratic,  and  the  North,  which  sought 
by  the  same  means  to  foster  its  ideal  of  democracy. 
Though  the  South,  with  the  aid  of  its  economic 
vassal,  the  Northern  capitalist  class,  was  for  some 
time  able  to  check  the  land-hunger  of  the  Northern 
democrats,  it  was  never  able  entirely  to  secure  the 
control  which  it  desired,  but  was  always  faced  with 
the  steady  and  continued  opposition  of  the  real 
North.  On  one  occasion  in  Congress,  the  heart 
of  the  whole  matter  was  clearly  shown,  for  at  the 


8  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

very  moment  when  the  Northerners  of  the  demo 
cratic  class  were  pressing  one  of  their  frequent 
schemes  for  free  land,  Southerners  and  their 
sympathetic  Northern  henchmen  were  furthering 
a  scheme  that  aimed  at  the  purchase  of  Cuba. 
From  the  impatient  sneer  of  a  Southerner  that  the 
Northerners  sought  to  give  "land  to  the  landless" 
and  the  retort  that  the  Southerners  seemed  equally 
anxious  to  supply  "niggers  to  the  niggerless,"  it 
can  be  seen  that  American  history  is  sometimes 
better  summed  up  by  angry  politicians  than  by 
historians. 

We  must  be  on  our  guard,  however,  against 
ascribing  to  either  side  too  precise  a  consciousness 
of  its  own  motives.  The  old  days  when  the  Amer 
ican  Civil  War  was  conceived  as  a  clear-cut  issue 
are  as  a  watch  in  the  night  that  has  passed,  and  we 
now  realize  that  historical  movements  are  almost 
without  exception  the  resultants  of  many  motives. 
We  have  come  to  recognize  that  men  have  always 
misapprehended  themselves,  contradicted  them 
selves,  obeyed  primal  impulses,  and  then  deluded 
themselves  with  sophistications  upon  the  springs 
of  action.  In  a  word,  unaware  of  what  they  are 
doing,  men  allow  their  aesthetic  and  dramatic 
senses  to  shape  their  conceptions  of  their  own  lives. 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC    9 

That  "great  impersonal  artist,"  of  whom  Matthew 
Arnold  has  so  much  to  say,  is  at  work  in  us  all, 
subtly  making  us  into  illusions,  first  to  ourselves 
and  later  to  the  historian.  It  is  the  business  of 
history,  as  of  analytic  fiction,  both  to  feel  the 
power  of  these  illusions  and  to  work  through  them 
in  imagination  to  the  dim  but  potent  motives  on 
which  they  rest.  We  are  prone  to  forget  that  we 
act  from  subconscious  quite  as  often  as  from  con 
scious  influences,  from  motives  that  arise  out  of 
the  dim  parts  of  our  being,  from  the  midst  of  shad 
ows  that  psychology  has  only  recently  begun  to 
lift,  where  senses  subtler  than  the  obvious  make 
use  of  fear,  intuition,  prejudice,  habit,  and  illusion, 
and  too  often  play  with  us  as  the  wind  with  blown 
leaves. 

True  as  this  is  of  man  individually,  it  is  even 
more  fundamentally  true  of  man  collectively,  of 
parties,  of  peoples.  It  is  a  strikingly  accurate 
description  of  the  relation  of  the  two  American 
nations  that  now  found  themselves  opposed  with 
in  the  Republic.  Neither  fully  understood  the 
other.  Each  had  a  social  ideal  that  was  deeper 
laid  than  any  theory  of  government  or  than  any 
commercial  or  humanitarian  interest.  Both  knew 
vaguely  but  with  sure  instinct  that  their  interests 


10  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

and  ideals  were  irreconcilable.  Each  felt  in  its 
heart  the  deadly  passion  of  self-preservation.  It 
was  because,  in  both  North  and  South,  men  were 
subtly  conscious  that  a  whole  social  system  was 
the  issue  at  stake,  and  because  on  each  side  they 
believed  in  their  own  ideals  with  their  whole  souls, 
that,  when  the  time  came  for  their  trial  by  fire, 
they  went  to  their  deaths  singing. 

In  the  South  there  still  obtained  the  ancient 
ideal  of  territorial  aristocracy.  Those  long  tradi 
tions  of  the  Western  European  peoples  which  had 
made  of  the  great  landholder  a  petty  prince  lay 
beneath  the  plantation  life  of  the  Southern  States. 
The  feudal  spirit,  revived  in  a  softer  world  and 
under  brighter  skies,  gave  to  those  who  partici 
pated  in  it  the  same  graces  and  somewhat  the 
same  capacities  which  it  gave  to  the  knightly  class 
in  the  days  of  Roland  —  courage,  frankness,  gen 
erosity,  ability  in  affairs,  a  sense  of  responsibility, 
the  consciousness  of  caste.  The  mode  of  life  which 
the  planters  enjoyed  and  which  the  inferior  whites 
regarded  as  a  social  paradise  was  a  life  of  complete 
deliverance  from  toil,  of  disinterested  participation 
in  local  government,  of  absolute  personal  freedom 
—  a  life  in  which  the  mechanical  action  of  law  was 
less  important  than  the  more  human  compulsion 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  11 

of  social  opinion,  and  in  which  private  differences 
were  settled  under  the  code  of  honor. 

This  Southern  life  was  carried  on  in  the  most  ap 
propriate  environment.  On  a  landed  estate,  often 
larger  than  many  of  Europe's  baronies,  stood  the 
great  house  of  the  planter,  usually  a  graceful  ex 
ample  of  colonial  architecture,  surrounded  by 
stately  gardens.  This  mansion  was  the  center  of 
a  boundless  hospitality;  guests  were  always  com 
ing  and  going;  the  hostess  and  her  daughters  were 
the  very  symbols  of  kindliness  and  ease.  To 
think  of  such  houses  was  to  think  of  innumerable 
joyous  days;  of  gentlemen  galloping  across  coun 
try  after  the  hounds;  of  coaches  lumbering  along 
avenues  of  noble  oaks,  bringing  handsome  women 
to  visit  the  mansion;  of  great  f eastings;  of  nights  of 
music  and  dancing;  above  all,  of  the  great  festival 
of  Christmas,  celebrated  much  as  had  been  the 
custom  in  "Merrie  England"  centuries  before. 

Below  the  surface  of  this  bright  world  lay  the 
enslaved  black  race.  In  the  minds  of  many  South 
erners  it  was  always  a  secret  burden  from  which 
they  saw  no  means  of  freeing  themselves.  To  eman 
cipate  the  slaves,  and  thereby  to  create  a  popula 
tion  of  free  blacks,  was  generally  considered,  from 
the  white  point  of  view,  an  impossible  solution  of 


12  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

the  problem.  The  Southerners  usually  believed 
that  the  African  could  be  tamed  only  in  small 
groups  and  when  constantly  surrounded  by  white 
influence,  as  in  the  case  of  house  servants.  Though 
a  few  great  capitalists  had  taken  up  the  idea  that 
the  deliberate  exploitation  of  the  blacks  was  the 
high  prerogative  of  the  whites,  the  general  senti 
ment  of  the  Southern  people  was  more  truly 
expressed  by  Toombs  when  he  said:  "The  question 
is  not  whether  we  could  be  more  prosperous  and 
happy  with  these  three  and  a  half  million  slaves  in 
Africa,  and  their  places  filled  with  an  equal  num 
ber  of  hardy,  intelligent,  and  enterprising  citizens 
of  the  superior  race;  but  it  is  simply  whether, 
while  we  have  them  among  us,  we  would  be  most 
prosperous  with  them  in  freedom  or  in  bondage. " 
The  Southern  people,  in  the  majority  of  in 
stances,  had  no  hatred  of  the  blacks.  In  the  main 
they  led  their  free,  spirited,  and  gracious  life,  con 
vinced  that  the  maintenance  of  slavery  was  but 
making  the  best  of  circumstances  which  were  be 
yond  their  control.  It  was  these  Southern  people 
who  were  to  hear  from  afar  the  horrible  indictment 
of  all  their  motives  by  the  Abolitionists  and  who 
were  to  react  in  a  growing  bitterness  and  distrust 
toward  everything  Northern. 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  13 

But  of  these  Southern  people  the  average  North 
erner  knew  nothing.  He  knew  the  South  only 
on  its  least  attractive  side  of  professional  politics. 
For  there  was  a  group  of  powerful  magnates,  rich 
planters  or  "  slave  barons,"  who  easily  made  their 
way  into  Congress,  and  who  played  into  the  hands 
of  the  Northern  capitalists,  for  a  purpose  similar 
to  theirs.  It  was  these  men  who  forced  the  issue 
upon  slavery;  they  warned  the  common  people  of 
the  North  to  mind  their  own  business;  and  for  do 
ing  so  they  were  warmly  applauded  by  the  North 
ern  capitalist  class.  It  was  therefore  in  opposition 
to  the  whole  American  world  of  organized  capital 
that  the  Northern  masses  demanded  the  use  of 
"the  Northern  hammer"  —  as  Sumner  put  it,  in 
one  of  his  most  furious  speeches  —  in  their  aim  to 
destroy  a  section  where,  intuitively,  they  felt  their 
democratic  ideal  could  not  be  realized. 

And  what  was  that  ideal?  Merely  to  answer 
democracy  is  to  dodge  the  fundamental  question. 
The  North  was  too  complex  in  its  social  structure 
and  too  multitudinous  in  its  interests  to  confine 
itself  to  one  type  of  life.  It  included  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  —  from  the  most  gracious 
of  scholars  who  lived  in  romantic  ease  among  his 
German  and  Spanish  books,  and  whose  lovely  house 


14  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

in  Cambridge  is  forever  associated  with  the  noble 
presence  of  Washington,  to  the  hardy  frontiersman, 
breaking  the  new  soil  of  his  Western  claim,  whose 
wife  at  sunset  shaded  her  tired  eyes,  under  a  hand 
rough  with  labor,  as  she  stood  on  the  threshold  of 
her  log  cabin,  watching  for  the  return  of  her  man 
across  the  weedy  fields  which  he  had  not  yet  fully 
subdued.  Far  apart  as  were  Longfellow  and  this 
toiler  of  the  West,  they  yet  felt  themselves  to  be 
one  in  purpose.  They  were  democrats,  but  not 
after  the  simple,  elementary  manner  of  the  demo 
crats  at  the  opening  of  the  century.  In  the  North, 
there  had  come  to  life  a  peculiar  phase  of  idealism 
that  had  touched  democracy  with  mysticism  and 
had  added  to  it  a  vague  but  genuine  romance. 
This  new  vision  of  the  destiny  of  the  country  had 
the  practical  effect  of  making  the  Northerners 
identify  themselves  in  their  imaginations  with  all 
mankind  and  in  creating  in  them  an  enthusiastic 
desire,  not  only  to  give  to  every  American  a  home 
of  his  own,  but  also  to  throw  open  the  gates  of  the 
nation  and  to  share  the  wealth  of  America  with  the 
poor  of  all  the  world.  In  very  truth,  it  was  their 
dominating  passion  to  give  "land  to  the  landless." 
Here  was  the  clue  to  much  of  their  attitude  toward 
the  South.  Most  of  these  Northern  dreamers  gave 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  15 

little  or  no  thought  to  slavery  itself;  but  they  felt 
that  the  section  which  maintained  such  a  system 
was  so  committed  to  aristocracy  that  any  real 
friendship  with  it  was  impossible. 

We  are  thus  forced  to  conceive  the  American 
Republic  in  the  years  immediately  following  the 
Compromise  of  1850  as,  in  effect,  a  dual  nation, 
without  a  common  loyalty  between  the  two  parts. 
Before  long  the  most  significant  of  the  great  North 
erners  of  the  time  was  to  describe  this  impossible 
condition  by  the  appropriate  metaphor  of  a  house 
divided  against  itself.  It  was  not,  however,  until 
eight  years  after  the  division  of  the  country  had 
been  acknowledged  in  1850  that  these  words  were 
uttered.  In  those  eight  years  both  sections  awoke 
to  the  seriousness  of  the  differences  that  they  had 
admitted.  Both  perceived  that,  instead  of  solv 
ing  their  problem  in  1850,  they  had  merely  drawn 
sharply  the  lines  of  future  conflict.  In  every 
thoughtful  mind  there  arose  the  same  alternative 
questions:  Is  there  no  solution  but  fighting  it  out 
until  one  side  destroys  the  other,  or  we  end  as 
two  nations  confessedly  independent?  Or  is  there 
some  conceivable  new  outlet  for  this  opposition  of 
energy  on  the  part  of  the  sections,  some  new  mode 
of  permanent  adjustment? 


16  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

It  was  at  the  moment  when  thinking  men  were 
asking  these  questions  that  one  of  the  nimblest  of 
politicians  took  the  center  of  the  stage.  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  was  far-sighted  enough  to  understand 
the  land-hunger  of  the  time.  One  is  tempted  to 
add  that  his  ear  was  to  the  ground.  The  state 
ment  will  not,  however,  go  unchallenged,  for  able 
apologists  have  their  good  word  to  say  for  Douglas. 
Though  in  the  main,  the  traditional  view  of  him 
as  the  prince  of  political  jugglers  still  holds  its 
own,  let  us  admit  that  his  bold,  rough  spirit,  filled 
as  it  was  with  political  daring,  was  not  without  its 
strange  vein  of  idealism.  And  then  let  us  repeat 
that  his  ear  was  to  the  ground.  Much  careful 
research  has  indeed  been  expended  in  seeking  to 
determine  who  originated  the  policy  which,  about 
1853,  Douglas  decided  to  make  his  own.  There 
has  also  been  much  dispute  about  his  motives. 
Most  of  us,  however,  see  in  his  course  of  action  an 
instance  of  playing  the  game  of  politics  with  an 
audacity  that  was  magnificent. 

His  conduct  may  well  have  been  the  result  of  a 
combination  of  motives  which  included  a  desire  to 
retain  the  favor  of  the  Northwest,  a  wish  to  pave 
the  way  to  his  candidacy  for  the  Presidency,  the 
intention  to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  South  as  well  as 


THE  TWO  NATIONS  OF,  THE  REPUBLIC  17 

that  of  his  own  locality,  and  perhaps  the  hope  that 
he  was  performing  a  service  of  real  value  to  his 
country.  That  is,  he  saw  that  the  favor  of  his 
own  Northwest  would  be  lavished  upon  any  man 
who  opened  up  to  settlement  the  rich  lands  be 
yond  Iowa  and  Missouri  which  were  still  held  by 
the  Indians,  and  for  which  the  Westerners  were 
clamoring.  Furthermore,  they  wanted  a  railroad 
that  would  reach  to  the  Pacific.  There  were,  how 
ever,  local  entanglements  and  political  cross-pur 
poses  which  involved  the  interests  of  the  free  State 
of  Illinois  and  those  of  the  slave  State  of  Missouri. 
Douglas's  great  stroke  was  a  programme  for  har 
monizing  all  these  conflicting  interests  and  for 
drawing  together  the  West  and  the  South.  Slave 
holders  were  to  be  given  what  at  that  moment 
they  wanted  most  —  an  opportunity  to  expand  in 
to  that  territory  to  the  north  and  west  of  Missouri 
which  had  been  made  free  by  the  Compromise  of 
1820,  while  the  free  Northwest  was  to  have  its 
railroad  to  the  coast  and  also  its  chance  to  expand 
into  the  Indian  country.  Douglas  thus  became 
the  champion  of  a  bill  which  would  organize  two 
new  territories,  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  but  which 
would  leave  the  settlers  in  each  to  decide  whether 
slavery  or  free  labor  should  prevail  within  their 


18  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

boundaries.  This  territorial  scheme  was  accepted 
by  a  Congress  in  which  the  Southerners  and  their 
Northern  allies  held  control,  and  what  is  known 
as  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  was  signed  by  Presi 
dent  Pierce  on  May  30, 1854. x 

1  The  origin  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  has  been  a  much  dis 
cussed  subject  among  historians  in  recent  years.  The  older  view 
that  Douglas  was  simply  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  "slave- 
power"  by  sacrificing  Kansas,  is  no  longer  tenable.  This  point 
has  been  elaborated  by  Allen  Johnson  in  his  study  of  Douglas 
(Stephen  A.  Douglas:  a  Study  in  American  Politics).  In  his  Re 
peal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  P.  O.  Ray  contends  that  the 
legislation  of  1854  originated  in  a  factional  controversy  in  Mis 
souri,  and  that  Douglas  merely  served  the  interests  of  the  pro- 
slavery  group  led  by  Senator  David  R.  Atchinson  of  Missouri. 
Still  another  point  of  view  is  that  presented  in  the  Genesis  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  by  F.  H.  Hodder,  who  would  explain  not 
only  the  division  of  the  Nebraska  Territory  into  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  but  the  object  of  the  entire  bill  by  the  insistent  efforts 
of  promoters  of  the  Pacific  railroad  scheme  to  secure  a  right  of 
way  through  Nebraska.  This  project  involved  the  organization 
of  a  territorial  government  and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise.  Douglas  was  deeply  interested  in  the  western  railroad 
interests  and  carried  through  the  necessary  legislation. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   PARTY   OF   POLITICAL  EVASION 

IN  order  to  understand  Douglas  one  must  under 
stand  the  Democratic  party  of  1854  in  which 
Douglas  was  a  conspicuous  leader.  The  Demo 
crats  boasted  that  they  were  the  only  really  na 
tional  party  and  contended  that  their  rivals,  the 
Whigs  and  the  Know-Nothings,  were  merely  the 
representatives  of  localities  or  classes.  Sectional 
ism  was  the  favorite  charge  which  the  Democrats 
brought  against  their  enemies;  and  yet  it  was  upon 
these  very  Democrats  that  the  slaveholders  had 
hitherto  relied,  and  it  was  upon  certain  members 
of  this  party  that  the  label,  "Northern  men  with 
Southern  principles,"  had  been  bestowed. 

The  label  was  not,  however,  altogether  fair,  for 
the  motives  of  the  Democrats  were  deeply  rooted 
in  their  own  peculiar  temperament.  In  the  last 
analysis,  what  had  held  their  organization  together, 
and  what  had  enabled  them  to  dominate  politics 

19 


20  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

for  nearly  the  span  of  a  generation,  was  their  faith 
in  a  principle  that  then  appealed  powerfully,  and 
that  still  appeals,  to  much  in  the  American  char 
acter.  This  was  the  principle  of  negative  action 
on  the  part  of  the  government  —  the  old  idea  that 
the  government  should  do  as  little  as  possible  and 
should  confine  itself  practically  to  the  duties  of  the 
policeman.  This  principle  has  seemed  always  to 
express  to  the  average  mind  that  traditional  in 
dividualism  which  is  an  inheritance  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race.  In  America,  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  reenforced  that  tradition  of 
local  independence  which  was  strong  throughout 
the  West  and  doubly  strong  in  the  South.  Then, 
too,  the  Democratic  party  still  spoke  the  language 
of  the  theoretical  Democracy  inherited  from  Jeffer 
son.  And  Americans  have  always  been  the  slaves 
of  phrases! 

Furthermore,  the  close  alliance  of  the  Northern 
party  machine  with  the  South  made  it,  generally, 
an  object  of  care  for  all  those  Northern  interests 
that  depended  on  the  Southern  market.  As  to  the 
Southerners,  their  relation  with  this  party  has 
two  distinct  chapters.  The  first  embraced  the 
twenty  years  preceding  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
and  may  be  thought  of  as  merging  into  the  second 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 

Engraving  from  a  photograph  taken  about  18(50. 


for  nearly  tin*  .span  of  a  generate  h<;th 

in  a  principle  that  then  appeak 
that  still  appeals,  to  much  in  the  A? 
acter.     This  was  the  principle  of  m, 
on  the  part  of  the  government  —  the  olo 
the  government  should  do  as  little  as  pov 
should  confine  itself  practically  to  the  dut.       **  i  he 
policeman.     This  principle  has  seemed  a 
express  to  the  average  mind  that  traditif 
dividuaiism  which  is  an  inheritance  of  the  .     *  ?••>- 
Saxon  race.     feHim^WW  middle 
nmeteeneV^f*/^  f  *&  «f  ^^W^WVt*^  i  i  lion  < 
local  independence  which  was  strong  throughout 
the  West  and  doubly  strong  in  the  South.     Then, 
too,  the  Democratic  party  still  spoke  the  language 
of  the  theoretical  Democracy  inherited  from  Jeffer 
son.     And  Americans  have  always  be*-    ;   «   -laves 
of  phrases! 

Furthermore,  the  close  alliaucr  >.#  tfce  N**rUnm 
party  machine  with  the  south  >  ^ 

an  object  of  care  for  all  thos*  Nor'Jben  Crests 
that  dt-pended  on  the  South*  r  oiark* -*  \.<  to  the 
Southerners,  their  relation  ^/ith  thi.s  i^rty  has 
two  distmct  chapters.  fHi«  first  eiuijwtced  the 
twenty  years  preceding  tbe  Corrmoifiise  of  1850, 
and  may  be  thought  of  as  raer^  into  the  second 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    21 

during  three  or  four  years  following  the  great 
equivocation.  In  that  period,  while  the  anti- 
slavery  crusade  was  taking  form,  the  aim  of  South 
ern  politicians  was  mainly  negative.  "Let  us 
alone,"  was  their  chief  demand.  Though  aggres 
sive  in  their  policy,  they  were  too  far-sighted  to 
demand  of  the  North  any  positive  course  in  favor 
of  slavery.  The  rise  of  a  new  type  of  Southern 
politician,  however,  created  a  different  situation 
and  began  a  second  chapter  in  the  relation  between 
the  South  and  the  Democratic  party  machine  in 
the  North.  But  of  that  hereafter.  Until  1854, 
it  was  the  obvious  part  of  wisdom  for  Southerners 
to  cooperate  as  far  as  possible  with  that  party 
whose  cardinal  idea  was  that  the  government 
should  come  as  near  as  conceivable  to  a  system  of 
non-interference;  that  it  should  not  interfere  with 
business,  and  therefore  oppose  a  tariff;  that  it 
should  not  interfere  with  local  government,  and 
therefore  applaud  states  rights;  that  it  should  not 
interfere  with  slavery,  and  therefore  frown  upon 
militant  abolition.  Its  policy  was,  to  adopt  a 
familiar  phrase,  one  of  masterly  inactivity.  In 
deed  it  may  well  be  called  the  party  of  political 
evasion.  It  was  a  huge,  loose  confederacy  of 
differing  political  groups,  embracing  paupers  and 


22  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

millionaires,  moderate  anti-slavery  men  and  slave 
barons,  all  of  whom  were  held  together  by  the 
unreliable  bond  of  an  agreement  not  to  tread  on 
each  other's  toes. 

Of  this  party  Douglas  was  the  typical  represen 
tative,  both  in  strength  and  weakness.  He  had 
all  its  pliability,  its  good  humor,  its  broad  and 
easy  way  with  things,  its  passion  for  playing  pol 
itics.  Nevertheless,  in  calling  upon  the  believers 
in  political  evasion  to  consent  for  this  once  to 
reverse  their  principle  and  to  endorse  a  positive 
action,  he  had  taken  a  great  risk.  Would  their 
sporting  sense  of  politics  as  a  gigantic  game  carry 
him  through  successfully?  He  knew  that  there 
was  a  hard  fight  before  him,  but  with  the  courage 
of  a  great  political  strategist,  and  proudly  confi 
dent  in  his  hold  upon  the  main  body  of  his  party, 
he  prepared  for  both  the  attacks  and  the  defec 
tions  that  were  inevitable. 

Defections,  indeed,  began  at  once.  Even  before 
the  bill  had  been  passed,  the  Appeal  of  the  Inde 
pendent  Democrats  was  printed  in  a  New  York 
paper,  with  the  signatures  of  members  of  Congress 
representing  both  the  extreme  anti-slavery  wing  of 
the  Democrats  and  the  organized  Free-Soil  party. 
The  most  famous  of  these  names  were  those  of 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    23 

Chase  and  Sumner,  both  of  whom  had  been  sent 
to  the  Senate  by  a  coalition  of  Free-Soilers  and 
Democrats.  With  them  was  the  veteran  aboli 
tionist,  Giddings  of  Ohio.  The  Appeal  denounced 
Douglas  as  an  "unscrupulous  politician"  and 
sounded  both  the  war-cries  of  the  Northern  masses 
by  accusing  him  of  being  engaged  in  "an  atrocious 
plot  to  exclude  from  a  vast  unoccupied  region  im 
migrants  from  the  Old  World  and  free  laborers 
from  our  own  States. " 

The  events  of  the  spring  and  summer  of  1854 
may  all  be  grouped  under  two  heads  —  the  forma 
tion  of  an  anti-Nebraska  party,  and  the  quick 
rush  of  sectional  patriotism  to  seize  the  territory 
laid  open  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act.  The  in 
stantaneous  refusal  of  the  Northerners  to  confine 
their  settlement  to  Nebraska,  and  their  prompt 
invasion  of  Kansas;  the  similar  invasion  from  the 
South ;  the  support  of  both  movements  by  societies 
organized  for  that  purpose;  the  war  in  Kansas  — 
all  the  details  of  this  thrilling  story  have  been  told 
elsewhere. x  The  political  story  alone  concerns  us 
here. 

When  the  fight  began  there  were  four  parties 

1  See  Jesse  Macy,  The  Anti-Slavery  Crusade.  (In  The  Chronicles 
of  America.) 


24  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

in  the  field :  the  Democrats,  the  Whigs,  the  Free- 
Soilers,  and  the  Know-Nothings. 

The  Free-Soil  party,  hitherto  a  small  organiza 
tion,  had  sought  to  make  slavery  the  main  issue 
in  politics.  Its  watchword  was  "Free  soil,  free 
speech,  free  labor,  and  free  men."  It  is  needless 
to  add  that  it  was  instantaneous  in  its  opposition 
to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act. 

The  Whigs  at  the  moment  enjoyed  the  greatest 
prestige,  owing  to  the  association  with  them  of  such 
distinguished  leaders  as  Webster  and  Clay.  In 
1854,  however,  as  a  party  they  were  dying,  and  the 
very  condition  that  had  made  success  possible  for 
the  Democrats  made  it  impossible  for  the  Whigs, 
because  the  latter  stood  for  positive  ideas,  and 
aimed  to  be  national  in  reality  and  not  in  the  eva 
sive  Democratic  sense  of  the  term.  For,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  fact,  on  analysis  all  the  greater  issues  of  the 
day  proved  to  be  sectional.  The  Whigs  would 
not,  like  the  Democrats,  adopt  a  negative  attitude 
toward  these  issues,  nor  would  they  consent  to  be 
come  merely  sectional.  Yet  at  the  moment  nega 
tion  and  sectionalism  were  the  only  alternatives, 
and  between  these  millstones  the  Whig  organization 
was  destined  to  be  ground  to  bits  and  to  disappear 
after  the  next  Presidential  election. 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    25 

Even  previous  to  1854,  numbers  of  Whigs  had 
sought  a  desperate  outlet  for  their  desire  to  be 
positive  in  politics  and  had  created  a  new  party 
which  during  a  few  years  was  to  seem  a  reality 
and  then  vanish  together  with  its  parent.  The 
one  chance  for  a  party  which  had  positive  ideas 
and  which  wished  not  to  be  sectional  was  the  defi 
nite  abandonment  of  existing  issues  and  the  discov 
ery  of  some  new  issue  not  connected  with  sectional 
feeling.  Now,  it  happened  that  a  variety  of  causes, 
social  and  religious,  haol  brought  about  bad  blood 
between  native  and  foreigner,  in  some  of  the  great 
cities,  and  upon  the  issue  involved  in  this  condi 
tion  the  failing  spirit  of  the  Whigs  fastened.  A 
secret  society  which  had  been  formed  to  oppose 
the  naturalization  of  foreigner^  quickly  became 
a  recognized  political  party.  As  the  members  of 
the  Society  answered  all  questions  with  "I  do  not 
know,"  they  came  to  be  called  "Know-Nothings," 
though  they  called  themselves  "Americans."  In 
those  states  where  the  Whigs  had  been  strongest 

—  Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania 

—  this  last  attempt  to  apply  their  former  temper, 
though  not  their  principles,  had  for  a  moment  some 
success;  but  it  could  not  escape  the  fierce  division 
which  was  forced  on  the  country  by  Douglas.     As 


26  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

a  result,  it  rapidly  split  into  factions,  one  of  which 
merged  with  the  enemies  of  Douglas,  while  the 
other  was  lost  among  his  supporters. 

What  would  the  great  dying  Whig  party  leave 
behind  it?  This  was  the  really  momentous  ques 
tion  in  1854.  Briefly,  this  party  bequeathed  the 
temper  of  political  positivism  and  at  the  same 
time  the  dread  of  sectionalism.  The  inner  clue  to 
American  politics  during  the  next  few  years  is,  to 
many  minds,  to  be  found  largely  in  the  union  of 
this  old  Whig  temper  with  a  new-born  sectional 
patriotism,  and,  to  other  minds,  in  the  gradual  and 
reluctant  passing  of  the  Whig  opposition  to  a  sec 
tional  party.  But  though  this  transformation  of 
the  wrecks  of  Whiggism  began  immediately,  and 
while  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  was  still  being 
hotly  debated  in  Congress,  it  was  not  until  1860 
that  it  was  completed. 

In  the  meantime  various  incidents  had  shown 
that  the  sectional  patriotism  of  the  North,  the 
fury  of  the  abolitionists,  and  the  positive  temper 
in  politics,  were  all  drawing  closer  together.  Each 
of  these  tendencies  can  be  briefly  illustrated.  For 
example,  the  rush  to  Kansas  had  begun,  and  the 
Massachusetts  Emigrant  Aid  Society  was  prepar 
ing  to  assist  settlers  who  were  going  west.  In 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    27 

May,  there  occurred  at  Boston  one  of  the  most  con 
spicuous  attempts  to  rescue  a  fugitive  slave,  in 
which  a  mob  led  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 
attacked  the  guards  of  Anthony  Burns,  a  captured 
fugitive,  killed  one  of  them,  but  failed  to  get  the 
slave,  who  was  carried  to  a  revenue  cutter  between 
lines  of  soldiers  and  returned  to  slavery.  Among 
numerous  details  of  the  hour  the  burning  of 
Douglas  in  effigy  is  perhaps  worth  passing  notice. 
In  July  the  anti-Nebraska  men  of  Michigan  held 
a  convention,  at  which  they  organized  as  a  politi 
cal  party  and  nominated  a  state  ticket.  Of  their 
nominees,  two  had  hitherto  ranked  themselves 
as  Free-Soilers,  three  as  anti-slavery  Democrats, 
and  five  as  Whigs.  For  the  name  of  their  party 
they  chose  "Republican,"  and  as  the  foundation 
of  their  platform  the  resolution  "That,  postpon 
ing  and  suspending  all  differences  with  regard  to 
political  economy  or  administrative  policy,"  they 
would  "act  cordially  and  faithfully  in  unison," 
opposing  the  extension  of  slavery,  and  would  "co 
operate  and  be  known  as  'Republican^'  until  the 
contest  be  terminated. " 

The  history  of  the  next  two  years  is,  in  its  main 
outlines,  the  story  of  the  war  in  Kansas  and  of  the 
spread  of  this  new  party  throughout  the  North.  It 


28  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

was  only  by  degrees,  however,  that  the  Republicans 
absorbed  the  various  groups  of  anti-Nebraska  men. 
What  happened  at  this  time  in  Illinois  may  be 
taken  as  typical,  and  it  is  particularly  noteworthy 
as  revealing  the  first  real  appearance  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  American  history. 

Though  in  1854  he  was  not  yet  a  national  figure, 
Lincoln  was  locally  accredited  with  keen  political 
insight,  and  was  regarded  in  Illinois  as  a  strong 
lawyer.  The  story  is  told  of  him  that,  while  he 
was  attending  court  on  the  circuit,  he  heard  the 
news  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  in  a  tavern  and 
sat  up  most  of  the  night  talking  about  it.  Next 
morning  he  used  a  phrase  destined  to  become 
famous.  "I  tell  you,"  said  he  to  a  fellow  lawyer, 
"this  nation  cannot  exist  half  slave  and  half  free." 

Lincoln,  however,  was  not  one  of  the  first  to 
join  the  Republicans.  In  Illinois,  in  1854,  Lincoln 
resigned  his  seat  in  the  legislature  to  become  the 
Whig  candidate  for  United  States  senator,  to  suc 
ceed  the  Democratic  colleague  of  Douglas.  But 
there  was  little  chance  of  his  election,  for  the  real 
contest  was  between  the  two  wings  of  the  Demo 
crats,  the  Nebraska  men  and  the  anti-Nebraska 
men,  and  Lincoln  withdrew  in  favor  of  the  candi 
date  of  the  latter,  who  was  elected. 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    29 

During  the  following  year,  from  the  midst  of 
his  busy  law  practice,  Lincoln  watched  the  Whig 
party  go  to  pieces.  He  saw  a  great  part  of  its 
vote  lodge  temporarily  among  the  Know-Nothings, 
but  before  the  end  of  the  year  even  they  began  to 
lose  their  prominence.  In  the  autumn,  from  the 
obscurity  of  his  provincial  life,  he  saw,  far  off, 
Seward,  the  most  astute  politician  of  the  day,  join 
the  new  movement.  In  New  York,  the  Republi 
can  state  convention  and  the  Whig  state  conven 
tion  merged  into  one,  and  Seward  pronounced  a 
baptismal  oration  upon  the  Republican  party  of 
New  York. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  which  met 
in  December,  1855,  the  anti-Nebraska  men  were 
divided  among  themselves,  and  the  Know- 
Nothings  held  the  balance  of  power.  No  can 
didate  for  the  speakership,  however,  was  able 
to  command  a  majority,  and  finally,  after  it 
had  been  agreed  that  a  plurality  would  be  suf 
ficient,  the  contest  closed,  on  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-third  ballot,  with  the  election  of  a 
Republican,  N.  P.  Banks.  Meanwhile  in  the 
South,  the  Whigs  were  rapidly  leaving  the  party, 
pausing  a  moment  with  the  Know-Nothings, 
only  to  find  that  their  inevitable  resting-place, 


30  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

under  stress  of  sectional  feeling,  was  with  the 
Democrats. 

On  Washington's  birthday,  1856,  the  Know- 
Nothing  national  convention  met  at  Philadelphia. 
It  promptly  split  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  and 
a  portion  of  its  membership  sent  word  offering 
support  to  another  convention  which  was  sitting 
at  Pittsburgh,  and  which  had  been  called  to  form 
a  national  organization  for  the  Republican  party. 
A  third  assembly  held  on  this  same  day  was  com 
posed  of  the  newspaper  editors  of  Illinois,  and  may 
be  looked  upon  as  the  organization  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  in  that  state.  At  the  dinner  following 
this  informal  convention,  Lincoln,  who  was  one 
of  the  speakers,  was  toasted  as  "the  next  United 
States  Senator." 

Some  four  months  afterward,  in  Philadelphia,  the 
Republicans  held  their  first  national  convention. 
Only  a  few  years  previous  its  members  had  called 
themselves  by  various  names  —  Democrats,  Pree- 
Soilers,  Know-Nothings,  Whigs.  The  old  hos 
tilities  of  these  different  groups  had  not  yet  died 
out.  Consequently,  though  Seward  was  far  and 
away  the  most  eminent  member  of  the  new  party, 
he  was  not  nominated  for  President.  That  danger 
ous  honor  was  bestowed  upon  a  dashing  soldier  and 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    31 

explorer  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Far 
West,  John  C.  Fremont.1 

The  key  to  the  political  situation  in  the  North, 
during  that  momentous  year,  was  to  be  found  in 
the  great  number  of  able  Whigs  who,  seeing  that 
their  own  party  was  lost  but  refusing  to  be  side 
tracked  by  the  make-believe  issue  of  the  Know- 
Nothings,  were  now  hesitating  what  to  do.  Though 
the  ordinary  politicians  among  the  Republicans 
doubtless  wished  to  conciliate  these  unattached 
Whigs,  the  astuteness  of  the  leaders  was  too  great 
to  allow  them  to  succumb  to  that  temptation. 
They  seem  to  have  feared  the  possible  effect  of 
immediately  incorporating  in  their  ranks,  while 
their  new  organization  was  still  so  plastic,  the  bulk 
of  those  conservative  classes  which  were,  after  all, 
the  backbone  of  this  irreducible  Whig  minimum. 
The  Republican  campaign  was  conducted  with  a 
degree  of  passion  that  had  scarcely  been  equaled 
in  America  before  that  day.  To  the  well-ordered 
spirit  of  the  conservative  classes  the  tone  which 
the  Republicans  assumed  appeared  shocking. 
Boldly  sectional  in  their  language,  sweeping  in  their 
denunciation  of  slavery,  the  leaders  of  the  cam- 

1  For  an  account  of  Fremont,  see  Stewart  Edward  White. 
The  Forty- Niners  (in  The  Chronicles  of  America"),  Chapter  II. 


32  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

paign  made  bitter  and  effective  use  of  a  number  of 
recent  events.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  published  in 
1852,  and  already  immensely  popular,  was  used  as 
a  political  tract  to  arouse,  by  its  gruesome  picture 
of  slavery,  a  hatred  of  slaveholders.  Returned 
settlers  from  Kansas  went  about  the  North  telling 
horrible  stories  of  guerrilla  warfare,  so  colored  as 
to  throw  the  odium  all  on  one  side.  The  scandal 
of  the  moment  was  the  attack  made  by  Preston 
Brooks  on  Sumner,  after  the  latter's  furious  dia 
tribe  in  the  Senate,  which  was  published  as  The 
Crime  Against  Kansas.  With  double  skill  the 
Republicans  made  equal  capital  out  of  the  intel 
lectual  violence  of  the  speech  and  the  physical 
violence  of  the  retort.  In  addition  to  this,  there 
was  ready  to  their  hands  the  evidence  of  Southern 
and  Democratic  sympathy  with  a  filibustering 
attempt  to  conquer  the  republic  of  Nicaragua, 
where  William  Walker,  an  American  adventurer, 
had  recently  made  himself  dictator.  Walker  had 
succeeded  in  having  his  minister  acknowledged  by 
the  Democratic  Administration,  and  in  obtaining 
the  endorsement  of  a  great  Democratic  meeting 
which  was  held  in  New  York.  It  looked,  therefore, 
as  if  the  party  of  political  evasion  had  an  anchor 
to  windward,  and  that,  in  the  event  of  their  losing 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    33 

in  Kansas,  they  intended  to  placate  their  Southern 
wing  by  the  annexation  of  Nicaragua. 

Here,  indeed,  was  a  stronger  political  tempest 
than  Douglas,  weatherwise  though  he  was,  had 
foreseen.  How  was  political  evasion  to  brave  it? 
With  a  courage  quite  equal  to  the  boldness  of  the 
Republicans,  the  Democrats  took  another  tack 
and  steered  for  less  troubled  waters.  Their  con 
vention  at  Cincinnati  was  temperate  and  discreet 
in  all  its  expressions,  and  for  President  it  nomi 
nated  a  Northerner,  James  Buchanan  of  Penn 
sylvania,  a  man  who  was  wholly  dissociated  in  the 
public  mind  from  the  struggle  over  Kansas. 

The  Democratic  party  leaders  knew  that  they 
already  had  two  strong  groups  of  supporters. 
Whatever  they  did,  the  South  would  have  to  go 
along  writh  them,  in  its  reaction  against  the  furi 
ous  sectionalism  of  the  Republicans.  Besides  the 
Southern  support,  the  Democrats  counted  upon 
the  aid  of  the  professional  politicians  —  those  men 
who  considered  politics  rather  as  a  fascinating 
game  than  as  serious  and  difficult  work  based  upon 
principle.  Upon  these  the  Democrats  could  con 
fidently  rely,  for  they  already  had,  in  Douglas  in 
the  North  and  Toombs  in  the  South,  two  master 
politicians  who  knew  this  type  and  its  impulses 


34  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

intimately,  because  they  themselves  belonged  to 
it.  But  the  Democrats  needed  the  support  of  a 
third  group.  If  they  could  only  win  over  the 
Northern  remnant  of  the  Whigs  that  was  still 
unattached,  their  position  would  be  secure.  In 
their  efforts  to  obtain  this  additional  and  very 
necessary  reinforcement,  they  decided  to  appear 
as  temperate  and  restrained  as  possible  —  a  well 
bred  party  which  all  mild  and  conservative  men 
could  trust. 

This  attitude  they  formulated  in  connection 
with  Kansas,  which  at  that  time  had  two  govern 
ments:  one,  a  territorial  government,  set  up  by 
emigrants  from  the  South;  the  other,  a  state 
government,  under  the  constitution  drawn  up  at 
Topeka  by  emigrants  from  the  North.  One 
authorized  slavery;  the  other  prohibited  slavery; 
and  both  had  appealed  to  Washington  for  recogni 
tion.  It  was  with  this  quite  definite  issue  that 
Congress  was  chiefly  concerned  in  the  spring  of 
1856.  During  the  summer  Toombs  introduced  a 
bill  securing  to  the  settlers  of  Kansas  complete 
freedom  of  action  and  providing  for  an  election  of 
delegates  to  a  convention  to  draw  up  a  state  con 
stitution  which  would  determine  whether  slav 
ery  or  freedom  was  to  prevail  —  in  other  words, 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    35 

whether  Kansas  was  to  be  annexed  to  the  South 
or  to  the  North.  This  bill  was  merely  the  full 
expression  of  what  Douglas  had  aimed  at  in 
1854  and  of  what  was  nicknamed  "popular  sov 
ereignty  "  —  the  right  of  the  locality  to  choose  for 
itself  between  slave  and  free  labor. 

Two  years  before,  such  a  measure  would  have 
seemed  radical.  But  in  politics  time  is  wonder 
fully  elastic.  Those  two  years  had  been  packed 
with  turmoil.  Kansas  had  been  the  scene  of  a 
bloody  conflict.  Regardless  of  which  side  had  a 
majority  on  the  ground,  extremists  on  each  side 
had  demanded  recognition  for  the  government  set 
up  by  their  own  party.  By  contrast,  Toombs's 
offer  to  let  the  majority  rule  appeared  temperate. 

The  Republicans  saw  instantly  that  they  must 
discredit  the  proposal  or  the  ground  would  be  cut 
from  under  them.  Though  the  bill  passed  the 
Senate,  they  were  able  to  set  it  aside  in  the  House 
in  favor  of  a  bill  admitting  Kansas  as  a  free  state 
with  the  Topeka  constitution.  The  Democrats 
thereupon  accused  the  Republicans  of  not  wanting 
peace  and  of  wishing  to  keep  up  the  war-cry 
"Bleeding  Kansas"  until  election  time. 

That,  throughout  the  country,  the  two  parties 
continued  on  the  lines  of  policy  they  had  chosen 


36  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

may  be  seen  from  an  illustration.  A  House  com 
mittee  which  had  gone  to  Kansas  to  investigate 
submitted  two  reports,  one  of  which,  submitted  by 
a  Democratic  member,  told  the  true  story  of  the 
murders  committed  by  John  Brown  at  Potta- 
watomie.  And  yet,  while  the  Republicans  spread 
everywhere  their  shocking  tales  of  murders  of  free- 
state  settlers,  the  Democrats  made  practically  no 
use  of  this  equally  shocking  tale  of  the  murder  of 
slaveholders.  Apparently  they  were  resolved  to 
appear  temperate  and  conservative  to  the  bitter 
end. 

And  they  had  their  reward.  Or,  perhaps  the 
fury  of  the  Republicans  had  its  just  deserts. 
From  either  point  of  view,  the  result  was  a  choice 
of  evils  on  the  part  of  the  reluctant  Whigs,  and 
that  choice  was  expressed  in  the  following  words 
by  as  typical  a  New  Englander  as  Rufus  Choate: 
"The  first  duty  of  Whigs,"  wrote  Choate  to  the 
Maine  State  central  committee,  "is  to  unite 
with  some  organization  of  our  countrymen  to 
defeat  and  dissolve  the  new  geographical  party 
calling  itself  Republican.  .  .  .  The  question 
for  each  and  every  one  of  us  is  .  .  .  by  what 
vote  can  I  do  most  to  prevent  the  madness  of  the 
times  from  working  its  maddest  act  —  the  very 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    37 

ecstasy  of  its  madness  —  the  permanent  formation 
and  the  actual  triumph  of  a  party  which  knows  one 
half  of  America  only  to  hate  and  dread  it.  If 
the  Republican  party,"  Choate  continued,  "ac 
complishes  its  object  and  gives  the  government  to 
the  North,  I  turn  my  eyes  from  the  consequences. 
To  the  fifteen  states  of  the  South  that  government 
will  appear  an  alien  government.  It  will  appear 
worse.  It  will  appear  a  hostile  government.  It 
will  represent  to  their  eye  a  vast  region  of  states 
organized  upon  anti-slavery,  flushed  by  triumph, 
cheered  onward  by  the  voice  of  the  pulpit,  tribune, 
and  press;  its  mission,  to  inaugurate  freedom  and 
put  down  the  oligarchy;  its  constitution,  the  glit 
tering  and  sounding  generalities  of  natural  right 
which  make  up  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
.  .  .  Practically  the  contest,  in  my  judgment,  is 
between  Mr.  Buchanan  and  Colonel  Fremont.  In 
these  circumstances,  I  vote  for  Mr.  Buchanan. " 

The  party  of  political  evasion  thus  became  the 
refuge  of  the  old  original  Whigs  who  were  forced 
to  take  advantage  of  any  port  in  a  storm.  Bu 
chanan  was  elected  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
To  the  careless  eye,  Douglas  had  been  justified  by 
results;  his  party  had  triumphed  as  perhaps  never 
before;  and  yet,  no  great  political  success  was  ever 


38  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

based  upon  less  stable  foundations.  To  maintain 
this  position,  those  Northerners  who  reasoned  as 
Choate  did  were  a  necessity;  but  to  keep  them  in 
the  party  of  political  evasion  would  depend  upon 
the  ability  of  this  party  to  play  the  game  of 
politics  without  acknowledging  sectional  bias. 
Whether  this  difficult  task  could  be  accomplished 
would  depend  upon  the  South.  Toombs,  on  his 
part,  was  anxious  to  continue  making  the  party  of 
evasion  play  the  great  American  game  of  politics, 
and  in  his  eagerness  he  perhaps  overestimated 
his  hold  upon  the  South.  This,  however,  remains 
to  be  seen. 

Already  another  faction  had  formed  around 
William  L.  Yancey  of  Alabama  —  a  faction  as 
intolerant  of  political  evasion  as  the  Republicans 
themselves,  and  one  that  was  eager  to  match  the 
sectional  Northern  party  by  a  sectional  Southern 
party.  It  had  for  the  moment  fallen  into  line  with 
the  Toombs  faction  because,  like  the  Whigs,  it  had 
not  the  courage  to  do  otherwise.  The  question 
now  was  whether  it  would  continue  fearful,  and 
whether  political  evasion  would  continue  to  reign. 

The  key  to  the  history  of  the  next  four  years  is 
in  the  growth  of  this  positive  Southern  party, 
which  had  the  inevitable  result  of  forcing  the 


THE  PARTY  OF  POLITICAL  EVASION    39 

Whig  remainder  to  choose,  not  as  in  1856  between 
a  positive  sectional  policy  and  an  evasive  non- 
sectional  policy,  but  in  1860  between  two  policies 
both  of  which  were  at  once  positive  and  sectional. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   POLITICIANS  AND   THE  NEW   DAY 

THE  South  had  thus  far  been  kept  in  line  with 
the  cause  of  political  evasion  by  a  small  group  of 
able  politicians,  chief  among  whom  were  Robert 
Toombs,  Howell  Cobb,  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens. 
Curiously  enough  all  three  were  Georgians,  and 
this  might  indeed  be  called  the  day  of  Georgia  in 
the  history  of  the  South. 

A  different  type  of  man,  however,  and  one  sig 
nificant  of  a  divergent  point  of  view,  had  long  en 
deavored  to  shake  the  leadership  of  the  Georgian 
group.  Rhett  in  South  Carolina,  Jefferson  Davis 
in  Mississippi,  and  above  all  Yancey  in  Alabama, 
together  with  the  interests  and  sentiment  which 
they  represented,  were  almost  ready  to  contest  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  policy  of  "nothing  doing."  To 
consolidate  the  interests  behind  them,  to  arouse 
and  fire  the  sentiment  on  which  they  relied,  was 
now  the  confessed  purpose  of  these  determined 

40 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  41 

men.  So  little  attention  has  hitherto  been  given 
to  motive  in  American  politics  that  the  modern 
student  still  lacks  a  clear-cut  and  intelligent 
perception  of  these  various  factions.  In  spite  of 
this  fact,  however,  these  men  may  safely  be  re 
garded  as  being  distinctly  more  intellectual,  and 
as  having  distinctly  deeper  natures,  than  the 
men  who  came  together  under  the  leadership  of 
Toombs  and  Cobb,  and  who  had  the  true  pro 
vincial  enthusiasm  for  politics  as  the  great  Ameri 
can  sport. 

The  factions  of  both  Toombs  and  Yancey  were 
intensely  Southern  and,  whenever  a  crisis  might 
come,  neither  meant  to  hesitate  an  instant  over 
striking  hard  for  the  South.  Toombs,  however, 
wanted  to  prevent  such  a  situation,  while  Yancey 
was  anxious  to  force  one.  The  former  conceived 
felicity  as  the  joy  of  playing  politics  on  the  biggest 
stage,  and  he  therefore  bent  all  his  strength  to 
preserving  the  so-called  national  parties;  the 
latter,  scornful  of  all  such  union,  was  for  a  sepa 
rate  Southern  community. 

Furthermore,  no  man  could  become  enthusi 
astic  about  political  evasion  unless  by  nature  he 
also  took  kindly  to  compromise.  So,  Toombs  and 
his  followers  were  for  preserving  the  negative 


42  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Democratic  position  of  1856.  In  a  formal  paper 
of  great  ability  Stephens  defended  that  position 
when  he  appeared  for  reelection  to  Congress  in 
1857.  Cobb,  who  had  entered  Buchanan's  Cabi 
net  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  who  spoke 
hopefully  of  making  Kansas  a  slave  state,  insisted 
nevertheless  that  such  a  change  must  be  "brought 
about  by  the  recognized  principles  of  carrying  out 
the  will  of  the  majority  which  is  the  great  doctrine 
of  the  Kansas  Bill."  To  Yancey,  as  to  the  Re 
publicans,  Kansas  was  a  disputed  border-land  for 
which  the  so-called  two  nations  were  fighting. 

The  internal  Southern  conflict  between  these 
two  factions  began  anew  with  the  Congressional 
elections  of  1857.  It  is  worth  observing  that  the 
make-up  of  these  factions  was  almost  a  resurrec 
tion  of  the  two  groups  which,  in  1850,  had  divided 
the  South  on  the  question  of  rejecting  the  Com 
promise.  In  a  letter  to  Stephens  in  reference  to 
one  of  the  Yancey  men,  Cobb  prophesied:  "Mc 
Donald  will  utterly  fail  to  get  up  a  new  Southern 
Rights  party.  Burnt  children  dread  the  fire,  and 
he  cannot  get  up  as  strong  an  organization  as  he 
did  in  1850.  Still  it  is  necessary  to  guard  every 
point,  as  McDonald  is  a  hard  hand  to  deal  with. " 
For  the  moment,  he  foretold  events  correctly. 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  43 

The  Southern  elections  of  1857  did  not  break  the 
hold  of  the  moderates. 

Yancey  turned  to  different  machinery,  quite  as 
useful  for  his  purpose.  This  he  found  in  the  South 
ern  commercial  conventions,  which  were  held  an 
nually.  At  this  point  there  arises  a  vexed  ques 
tion  which  has,  of  late,  aroused  much  discussion. 
Was  there  then  what  we  should  call  today  a  slave 
"  interest "  ?  Was  organized  capital  deliberately 
exploiting  slavery?  And  did  Yancey  play  into  its 
hands?1  The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  between 
1856  and  1860,  both  the  idealist  parties,  the  Repub 
licans  and  the  Secessionists,  made  peace  with, 
shall  we  say,  the  Mammon  of  unrighteousness,  or 
merely  organized  capital?  The  one  joined  hands 
with  the  iron  interest  of  the  North;  the  other,  with 
the  slave  interest  of  the  South.  The  Republicans 
preached  the  domination  of  the  North  and  a 
protective  tariff;  the  Yancey  men  preached  the 
independence  of  the  South  and  the  reopening  of 
the  slave  trade. 

These  two  issues  Yancey,  however,  failed  to 
unite,  though  the  commercial  convention  of  1859 

1  For  those  who  would  be  persuaded  that  there  was  such  a  slave 
interest,  perhaps  the  best  presentation  is  to  be  found  in  Professor 
Dodd's  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis. 


44  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

at  last  gave  its  support  to  a  resolution  that  all  laws, 
state  or  federal,  prohibiting  the  African  slave  trade 
ought  to  be  repealed.  That  great  body  of  North 
ern  capital  which  had  dealings  with  the  South  was 
ready,  as  it  always  had  been,  to  finance  any  scheme 
that  Southern  business  desired.  Slavers  were 
fitted  out  in  New  York,  and  the  city  authorities 
did  not  prevent  their  sailing.  Against  this  som 
ber  background  stands  forth  that  much  admired 
action  of  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan,  Buchanan's 
Secretary  of  State.  Already  the  slave  trade  was  in 
process  of  revival,  and  the  British  Navy,  impelled 
by  the  powerful  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  England, 
was  active  in  its  suppression.  American  ships  sus 
pected  of  being  slavers  were  visited  and  searched. 
Cass  seized  his  opportunity,  and  declaring  that 
such  things  "could  not  be  submitted  to  by  an 
independent  nation  without  dishonor,"  sent  out 
American  warships  to  prevent  this  interference. 
Thereupon  the  British  government  consented  to 
give  up  trying  to  police  the  ocean  against  slavers. 
It  is  indeed  true,  therefore,  that  neither  North  nor 
South  has  an  historical  monopoly  of  the  support  of 
slavery ! 

It  is  but  fair  to  add  that,  so  far  as  the  movement 
to  reopen  the  slave  trade  found  favor  outside  the 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  45 

slave  barons  and  their  New  York  allies,  it  was 
advocated  as  a  means  of  political  defense,  of  in 
creasing  Southern  population  as  an  offset  to  the 
movement  of  free  emigration  into  the  North,  and 
of  keeping  the  proportion  of  Southern  representa 
tion  in  Congress.  Stephens,  just  after  Cass  had 
successfully  twisted  the  lion's  tail,  took  this  posi 
tion  in  a  speech  that  caused  a  sensation.  In  a 
private  letter  he  added,  "Unless  we  get  immigra 
tion  from  abroad,  we  shall  have  few  more  slave 
states.  This  great  truth  seems  to  take  the  people 
by  surprise.  Some  shrink  from  it  as  they  would 
from  death.  Still,  it  is  as  true  as  death."  The 
scheme,  however,  never  received  general  accept 
ance;  and  in  the  constitution  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  there  was  a  section  prohibiting  the 
African  slave  trade.  On  the  other  of  these  two 
issues  —  the  independence  of  the  South  —  Yancey 
steadily  gained  ground.  With  each  year  from 
1856  to  1860,  a  larger  proportion  of  Southerners 
drew  out  of  political  evasion  and  gave  adherence 
to  the  idea  of  presenting  an  ultimatum  to  the 
North,  with  secession  as  an  alternative. 

Meanwhile,  Buchanan  sent  to  Kansas,  as  Gover 
nor,  Robert  J.  Walker,  one  of  the  most  astute 
of  the  Democrats  of  the  opposite  faction  and  a 


46  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Mississippian.  The  tangled  situation  which  Walker 
found,  the  details  of  his  attempt  to  straighten  it 
out,  belong  in  another  volume.1  It  is  enough  in 
this  connection  merely  to  mention  the  episode 
of  the  Lecompton  convention  in  the  election  of 
which  the  Northern  settlers  refused  to  participate, 
though  Walker  had  promised  that  they  should 
have  full  protection  and  a  fair  count  as  well  as 
that  the  work  of  the  convention  should  be  submit 
ted  to  a  popular  vote.  This  action  of  Walker's 
was  one  more  cause  of  contention  between  the 
warring  factions  in  the  South.  The  fact  that  he 
had  met  the  Northerners  half-way  was  seized  upon 
by  the  Yancey  men  as  evidence  of  the  betrayal 
of  the  South  by  the  Democratic  moderates.  On 
the  other  hand,  Cobb,  writing  of  the  situation  in 
Kansas,  said  that  "a  large  majority  are  against 
slavery  and  .  .  .  our  friends  regard  the  fate  of 
Kansas  as  a  free  state  pretty  well  fixed  .  .  .  the 
pro-slavery  men,  finding  that  Kansas  was  likely 
to  become  a  Black  Republican  State,  determined 
to  unite  with  the  free-state  Democrats."  Here 
is  the  clue  to  Walker's  course.  As  a  strict  party 
man,  he  preferred  to  accept  Kansas  free,  with 

1  See  Jesse  Macy,  The  Anti-Slavery  Crusade.     (In  The  Chron 
icles  of  America.} 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  47 

Democrats  in  control,  rather  than  risk  losing  it 
altogether. 

The  next  step  in  the  affair  is  one  of  the  unsolved 
problems  in  American  history.  Buchanan  sud 
denly  changed  front,  disgraced  Walker,  and  threw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  the  Southern  extremists. 
Though  his  reasons  for  doing  so  have  been  debated 
to  this  day,  they  have  not  yet  been  established 
beyond  dispute.  What  seems  to  be  the  favorite 
explanation  is  that  Buchanan  was  in  a  panic. 
What  brought  him  to  that  condition  may  have 
been  the  following  events. 

The  free-state  men,  by  refusing  to  take  part  in 
electing  the  convention,  had  given  control  to  the 
slaveholders,  who  proved  they  were  not  slow  to 
seize  their  opportunity.  They  drew  up  a  con 
stitution  favoring  slavery,  but  this  constitution, 
Walker  had  promised,  was  to  be  submitted  in 
referendum.  If  the  convention  decided,  however, 
not  to  submit  the  constitution,  would  not  Congress 
have  the  right  to  accept  it  and  admit  Kansas  as  a 
state?  This  question  was  immediately  raised. 
It  now  became  plain  that,  by  refusing  to  take  part 
in  the  election,  the  free-state  Kansans  had  thrown 
away  a  great  tactical  advantage.  Of  this  blunder 
in  generalship  the  Yancey  men  took  instant  ad- 


48  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

vantage.  It  was  known  that  the  proportion  of 
Free-Soilers  in  Kansas  was  very  great  —  perhaps 
a  majority  —  and  the  Southerners  reasoned  that 
they  should  not  be  obliged  to  give  up  the  advan 
tage  they  had  won  merely  to  let  their  enemies  re 
trieve  their  mistake.  Jefferson  Davis  formulated 
this  position  in  an  address  to  the  Mississippi  Legis 
lature  in  which  he  insisted  that  Congress,  not  the 
Kansas  electorate,  was  entitled  to  create  the  Kansas 
constitution,  that  the  Convention  was  a  proper 
ly  chosen  body,  and  that  its  work  should  stand. 
What  Davis  said  in  a  stately  way,  others  said  in 
a  furious  way.  Buchanan  stated  afterward  that 
he  changed  front  because  certain  Southern  States 
had  threatened  that,  if  he  did  not  abandon  Walker, 
they  would  secede. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  Buchanan  did  abandon 
Walker  and  threw  all  the  influence  of  the  Adminis 
tration  in  favor  of  admitting  Kansas  with  the 
Lecompton  constitution.  But  would  this  be  true 
to  that  principle  of  "popular  sovereignty"  which 
was  the  very  essence  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act? 
Would  it  be  true  to  the  principle  that  each  locality 
should  decide  for  itself  between  slavery  and  free 
dom?  On  this  issue  the  Southerners  were  fairly 
generally  agreed  and  maintained  that  there  was  no 


JAMES  BUCHANAN 

Drawing  from  a  photograph. 


48  LINCOLN  AND  TF 

vantage.     If   was  known  thai  i        rr>^xjrtiou  of 
Free-So  Her:-?  in  Kansas  was  very  g-  perli-tn- 

a  majority  —  and  the  Southerners  r*v.>     >  d  that 
they  should  not  be  obliged  to  give  up  f 
tage  they  had  won  merely  to  let  tht-.'i-  fneujj 
trieve  their  mistake.     Jefferson  Davi 
this  position  in  an  address  to  the  Mississippi  Legis 
lature  in  which  he  insisted  that  Congress,  not  the 
Kansas  electorate,  was  entii  led  » o  create  the  Kansas 
constitution,  tV^y^uomt .&ft*M. 
ly  chosen  bodgfentfiteii  i»UtiM  fekriwwaH 
What  Davib  »aid  in  a  stately  \vay,  others  said  in 
a  furious  way.     Buchanan  stated  afterward  that 
he  changed  front  because  certain  Southern  States 
had  threatened  that,  if  he  did  not  abandon  Walker, 
they  would  secede. 

Be  that    as   it   may,   Buchanan   did   abandon 
WTalker  and  threw  all  the  infihmw  -.'.inis- 

tration  in   favor   of   admitting  &•*••> 
Lecompton  constitution.  be  true 

to  that  principle  of  "poptiUt  #  ?  which 

was  the  very  essence  of  the  K a i>»a«- Nebraska  Act 
Would  it  be  true  to  the  prinr:;^-  rhat  each  locality 
should  decide  for  itself  i^twwn  slavery  and  free 
dom?     On  this  issue  the  Southerners  were  fairly 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  49 

obligation  to  go  behind  the  work  of  the  convention. 
Not  so,  however,  the  great  exponent  of  popular 
sovereignty,  Douglas.  Rising  in  his  place  in  the 
Senate,  he  charged  the  President  with  conspiring 
to  defeat  the  will  of  the  majority  in  Kansas.  "  If 
Kansas  wants  a  slave  state  constitution,"  said  he, 
"she  has  a  right  to  it;  if  she  wants  a  free  state 
constitution,  she  has  a  right  to  it.  It  is  none  of 
my  business  which  way  the  slavery  clause  is  de 
cided.  I  care  not  whether  it  is  voted  up  or  down. " 

There  followed  one  of  those  prolonged  legisla 
tive  battles  for  which  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  is  justly  celebrated.  Furious  oratory,  prop 
ositions,  counter-propositions,  projected  com 
promises,  other  compromises,  and  at  the  end- 
no  thing  positive.  But  Douglas  had  defeated  the 
attempt  to  bring  in  Kansas  with  the  Lecompton 
constitution.  As  to  the  details  of  the  story,  they 
include  such  distinguished  happenings  as  a  brawl 
ing,  all-night  session  when  "thirty  men,  at  least, 
were  engaged  in  the  fisticuff,"  and  one  Represen 
tative  knocked  another  down. 

Douglas  was  again  at  the  center  of  the  stage,  but 
his  term  as  Senator  was  nearing  its  end.  He  and 
the  President  had  split  their  party.  Pursued  by 
the  vengeful  malice  of  the  Administration,  Douglas 


50  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

went  home  in  1858  to  Illinois  to  fight  for  his  reelec 
tion.  His  issue,  of  course,  was  popular  sovereignty. 
His  temper  was  still  the  temper  of  political  evasion. 
How  to  hold  fast  to  his  own  doctrine,  and  at  the 
same  time  keep  to  his  programme  of  "nothing 
doing";  how  to  satisfy  the  negative  Democrats  of 
the  North  without  losing  his  last  hold  on  the  posi 
tive  men  of  the  South  —  such  were  his  problems, 
and  they  were  made  still  more  difficult  by  a  recent 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

The  now  famous  case  of  Dred  Scott  had  been 
decided  in  the  previous  year.  Its  bewildering  legal 
technicalities  may  here  be  passed  over;  funda 
mentally,  the  real  question  involved  was  the  status 
of  a  negro,  Dred  Scott.  A  slave  who  had  been 
owned  in  Missouri,  and  who  had  been  taken  by 
his  master  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  to  the  free  ter 
ritory  of  Minnesota,  and  then  back  to  Missouri, 
now  claimed  to  be  free.  The  Supreme  Court  un 
dertook  to  decide  whether  his  residence  in  Min 
nesota  rendered  him  free,  and  also  whether  any 
negro  of  slave  descent  could  be  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  The  official  opinion  of  the  Court, 
delivered  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  decided  both 
questions  against  the  suppliant.  It  was  held  that 
the  "citizens"  recognized  by  the  Constitution  did 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  51 

not  include  negroes.  So,  even  if  Scott  were  free, 
he  could  not  be  considered  a  citizen  entitled  to 
bring  suit  in  the  Federal  Courts.  Furthermore, 
he  could  not  be  considered  free,  in  spite  of  his 
residence  in  Minnesota,  because,  as  the  Court  now 
ruled,  Congress,  when  it  enacted  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  had  exceeded  its  authority;  the  en 
actment  had  never  really  been  in  force;  there  was 
no  binding  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  North 
western  territories. 

If  this  decision  was  good  law,  all  the  discussion 
about  popular  sovereignty  went  for  nothing,  and 
neither  an  act  of  Congress  nor  the  vote  of  the  popu 
lation  of  a  territory,  whether  for  or  against  slavery, 
was  of  any  value  whatsoever.  Nothing  mattered 
until  the  new-made  state  itself  took  action  after  its 
admission  to  the  Union.  Until  that  time,  no  power, 
national  or  local,  could  lawfully  interfere  with  the 
introduction  of  slaves.  In  the  case  of  Kansas,  it 
was  no  longer  of  the  least  importance  what  be 
came  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  or  of  any 
other  that  the  settlers  might  make.  The  territory 
was  open  to  settlement  by  slaveholders  and  would 
continue  to  be  so  as  long  as  it  remained  a  territory. 
The  same  conditions  existed  in  Nebraska  and  in 
all  the  Northwest.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  was 


5S  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

accepted  as  orthodox  Democratic  doctrine  by  the 
South,  by  the  Administration,  and  by  the  "North 
ern  men  with  Southern  principles."  The  astute 
masters  of  the  game  of  politics  on  the  Democratic 
side  struck  the  note  of  legality.  This  was  law, 
the  expression  of  the  highest  tribunal  of  the  Re 
public;  what  more  was  to  be  said?  Though  in 
truth  there  was  but  one  other  thing  to  be  said, 
and  that  revolutionary,  the  Republicans,  never 
theless,  did  not  falter  over  it.  Seward  announced 
it  in  a  speech  in  Congress  on  "Freedom  in  Kansas, " 
when  he  uttered  this  menace:  "We  shall  reorgan 
ize  the  Court  and  thus  reform  its  political  senti 
ments  and  practices. " 

In  the  autumn  of  1858  Douglas  attempted 
to  perform  the  acrobatic  feat  of  reconciling  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  which  as  a  Democrat  he  had 
to  accept,  with  that  idea  of  popular  sovereignty 
without  which  his  immediate  followers  could  not 
be  content.  In  accepting  the  Republican  nomi 
nation  as  Douglas's  opponent  for  the  senatorship, 
Lincoln  used  these  words  which  have  taken  rank 
among  his  most  famous  utterances:  "A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe 
this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  53 

be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall  — 
but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 
become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction ;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till 
it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states,  old  as 
well  as  new  —  North  as  well  as  South. " 

No  one  had  ever  so  tellingly  expressed  the  death- 
grapple  of  the  sections :  slavery  the  weapon  of  one, 
free  labor  the  weapon  of  the  other.  Though  Lin 
coln  was  at  that  time  forty-nine  years  old,  his 
political  experience,  in  contrast  with  that  of  Doug 
las,  was  negligible.  He  afterward  aptly  described 
his  early  life  in  that  expressive  line  from  Gray, 
"The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor."  He 
lacked  regular  schooling,  and  it  was  altogether 
from  the  practice  of  law  that  he  had  gained  such 
formal  education  as  he  had.  In  law,  however,  he 
had  become  a  master,  and  his  position,  to  judge 
from  the  class  of  cases  entrusted  to  him,  was  second 
to  none  in  Illinois.  To  that  severe  yet  wholesome 
cast  of  mind  which  the  law  establishes  in  men 
naturally  lofty,  Lincoln  added  the  tonic  influence 
of  a  sense  of  style  —  not  the  verbal  acrobatics  of 


54  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

the  rhetorician,  but  that  power  to  make  words 
and  thought  a  unit  which  makes  the  artist  of  a 
man  who  has  great  ideas.  How  Lincoln  came  by 
this  literary  faculty  is,  indeed,  as  puzzling  as 
how  Burns  came  by  it.  But  there  it  was,  discip 
lined  by  the  court  room,  made  pungent  by  famil 
iarity  with  plain  people,  stimulated  by  constant 
reading  of  Shakespeare,  and  chastened  by  study 
of  the  Bible. 

It  was  arranged  that  Douglas  and  Lincoln 
should  tour  the  State  together  in  a  series  of  joint 
debates.  As  a  consequence  there  followed  a  most 
interesting  opposition  of  methods  in  the  use  of 
words,  a  contest  between  the  method  formed  in 
Congress  at  a  time  when  Congress  was  a  perfect 
rhetorical  academy,  and  that  method  of  using 
words  which  was  based  on  an  arduous  study  of 
Blackstone,  Shakespeare,  and  Isaiah.  Lincoln  is 
sued  from  the  debates  one  of  the  chief  intellec 
tual  leaders  of  America,  and  with  a  place  in 
English  literature;  Douglas  came  out  —  a  Senator 
from  Illinois. 

But  though  Douglas  kept  his  following  together, 
and  though  Lincoln  was  voted  down,  to  Lincoln 
belonged  the  real  strategic  victory.  In  order  to 
save  himself  with  his  own  people,  Douglas  had 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  55 

been  forced  to  make  admissions  that  ruined  him 
with  the  South.  Because  of  these  admissions  the 
breach  in  the  party  of  political  evasion  became 
irreparable.  It  was  in  the  debate  at  Freeport  that 
Douglas's  fate  overtook  him,  for  Lincoln  put  this 
question:  "Can  the  people  of  a  United  States 
territory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of 
any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery 
from  its  limits,  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state 
constitution?" 

Douglas  answered  in  his  best  style  of  political 
thunder.  "It  matters  not,"  he  said,  "what  way 
the  Supreme  Court  may  hereafter  decide  as  to 
the  abstract  question  whether  slavery  may  or 
may  not  go  into  a  territory  under  the  Constitu 
tion;  the  people  have  the  lawful  means  to  intro 
duce  it  or  exclude  it  as  they  please,  for  the  reason 
that  slavery  cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour  any 
where  unless  it  is  supported  by  local  police  regu 
lations.  Those  police  regulations  can  only  be 
established  by  the  local  legislatures;  and  if  the 
people  are  opposed  to  slavery,  they  will  elect  rep 
resentatives  to  that  body  who  will  by  unfriendly 
legislation  effectually  prevent  the  introduction  of 
it  into  their  midst.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
for  it,  their  legislation  will  favor  its  extension. 


56  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Hence,  no  matter  what  the  decision  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  may  be  on  that  abstract  question, 
still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make  a  slave  terri 
tory  or  a  free  territory  is  perfect  and  complete 
under  the  Nebraska  Bill." 

As  to  the  moral  aspect  of  his  actions,  Douglas 
must  ultimately  be  judged  by  the  significance 
which  this  position  in  which  he  placed  himself 
assumed  in  his  own  mind.  Friendly  critics  excuse 
him:  an  interpretation  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
which  explained  it  away  as  an  irresponsible  utter 
ance  on  a  subject  outside  the  scope  of  the  case, 
a  mere  obiter  dictum,  is  the  justification  which  is 
called  in  to  save  him  from  the  charge  of  insincerity. 
His  friends,  today,  admit  that  this  interpretation 
was  bad  law,  but  maintain  that  it  may  have  been 
good  morals,  and  that  Douglas  honestly  held  it. 
But  many  of  us  have  not  yet  advanced  so  far  in 
critical  generosity,  and  cannot  help  feeling  that 
Douglas's  position  remains  political  legerdemain — 
an  attempt  by  a  great  officer  of  the  government, 
professing  to  defend  the  Supreme  Court,  to  show 
the  people  how  to  go  through  the  motions  of 
obedience  to  the  Court  while  defeating  its  inten 
tion.  If  not  double-dealing  in  a  strict  sense,  it 
must  yet  be  considered  as  having  in  it  the  temper 


THE  POLITICIANS  AND  THE  NEW  DAY  57 

of  double-dealing.1  This  was,  indeed,  the  view 
of  many  men  of  his  own  day  and,  among  them, 
of  Lincoln.  Yet  the  type  of  man  on  whom  the 
masters  of  the  game  of  politics  relied  saw  noth 
ing  in  Douglas's  position  at  which  to  be  disturb 
ed.  It  was  merely  playing  politics,  and  if  that 
absorbing  sport  required  one  to  carry  water  on 
both  shoulders,  why  —  play  the  game!  Douglas 
was  the  man  for  people  like  that.  They  cheered 
him  to  the  echo  and  sent  him  back  to  the  Senate. 
So  well  was  this  type  understood  by  some  of 
Lincoln's  friends  that  they  had  begged  him,  at 
least  according  to  tradition,  not  to  put  the  ques 
tion  at  Freeport,  as  by  doing  so  he  would  enable 
Douglas  to  save  himself  with  his  constituency. 
Lincoln  saw  further,  however.  He  understood 
better  than  they  the  forces  then  at  work  in  America. 
The  reply  reported  of  him  was:  "If  Douglas  an 
swers,  he  can  never  be  President,  and  the  battle  of 
1860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this. " 
Well  might  Yancey  and  his  followers  receive 

1  There  are  three  ways  of  regarding  Douglas's  position :  (1)  As 
merely  a  daring  piece  of  evasion  designed  to  hold  all  the  Democrats 
together;  (2)  as  an  attempt  to  secure  his  locality  at  all  costs,  taking 
his  chances  on  the  South;  (3)  as  a  sincere  expression  of  the  legal  in 
terpretation  mentioned  above.  It  is  impossible  in  attempting  to 
choose  among  these  to  escape  wholly  one's  impression  of  the  man's 
character. 


58  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

with  a  shout  of  joy  the  "Freeport  Doctrine,"  as 
Douglas's  supreme  evasion  was  called.  Should 
Southerners  trust  any  longer  the  man  who  had 
evolved  from  the  principle  of  let-'em-alone  to  the 
principle  of  double-dealing?  However,  the  South 
erners  were  far  from  controlling  the  situation. 
Though  the  events  of  1858  had  created  discord  in 
the  Democratic  party,  they  had  not  consolidated 
the  South.  Men  like  Toombs  and  Stephens  were 
still  hopeful  of  keeping  the  States  together  in  the 
old  bond  of  political  evasion.  The  Democratic 
machine,  damaged  though  it  was,  had  not  yet  lost 
its  hold  on  the  moderate  South,  and  while  that 
continued  to  be  the  case,  there  was  still  power 
in  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CRISIS 

THE  Southern  moderates  in  1859  form  one  of 
those  political  groups,  numerous  enough  in  history, 
who  at  a  crisis  arrest  our  imagination  because  of 
the  irony  of  their  situation.  Unsuspecting,  these 
men  went  their  way,  during  the  last  summer  of  the 
old  regime,  busy  with  the  ordinary  affairs  of  state, 
absorbed  in  their  opposition  to  the  Southern 
radicals,  never  dreaming  of  the  doom  that  was 
secretly  moving  toward  them  through  the  plans 
of  John  Brown.  In  the  soft  brilliancy  of  the 
Southern  summer  when  the  roses  were  in  bloom, 
many  grave  gentlemen  walked  slowly  up  and  down 
together  under  the  oaks  of  their  plantation  ave 
nues,  in  the  grateful  dusk,  talking  eagerly  of  how 
the  scales  trembled  in  Southern  politics  between 
Toombs  and  Yancey,  and  questioning  whether  the 
extremists  could  ride  down  the  moderate  South 
and  reopen  the  slave  trade.  In  all  their  wonder- 

59 


60  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

ing  whether  Douglas  would  ever  come  back  to 
them  or  would  prove  the  blind  Samson  pulling 
down  their  temple  about  their  ears,  there  was  never 
a  word  about  the  approaching  shadow  which  was 
so  much  more  real  than  the  shades  of  the  falling 
night,  and  yet  so  entirely  shut  away  from  their 
observation. 

In  this  summer,  Stephens  withdrew  as  he 
thought  from  public  life.  With  an  intensely  sensi 
tive  nature,  he  had  at  times  flashes  of  strange  feel 
ing  which  an  unsophisticated  society  would  regard 
as  prophetic  inspirations.  When  he  left  Washing 
ton  "on  the  beautiful  morning  of  the  5th  of  March, 
1859,  he  stood  at  the  stern  of  the  boat  for  some 
minutes  gazing  back  at  the  capital."  He  had 
announced  his  intention  of  not  standing  again  as  a 
Representative,  and  one  of  his  fellow-passengers 
asked  jokingly  whether  he  was  thinking  of  his 
return  as  a  Senator.  Stephen's  reply  was  full  of 
emotion,  "No,  I  never  expect  to  see  Washington 
again  unless  I  am  brought  here  as  a  prisoner  of 
war. "  During  the  summer  he  endeavored  to  cast 
off  his  intuition  of  approaching  disaster.  At  his 
plantation,  "Liberty  Hall,"  he  endeavored  to  be 
content  with  the  innumerable  objects  associated 
with  his  youth;  he  tried  to  feel  again  the  grace  of 


THE  CRISIS  61 

the  days  that  were  gone,  the  mysterious  loveliness 
of  the  Southern  landscape  with  its  immense  fields, 
its  forests,  its  great  empty  spaces  filled  with  glow 
ing  sunshine.  He  tried  to  possess  his  troubled  soul 
with  the  severe  intellectual  ardor  of  the  law.  But 
his  gift  of  second  sight  would  not  rest.  He  could 
not  overcome  his  intuition  that,  for  all  the  peace 
and  dreaminess  of  the  outward  world,  destiny  was 
upon  him.  Looking  out  from  his  spiritual  seclu 
sion,  he  beheld  what  seemed  to  him  complete  po 
litical  confusion,  both  local  and  national.  His 
despairing  mood  found  expression  a  little  later  in 
the  words:  "Indeed  if  we  were  now  to  have  a 
Southern  convention  to  determine  upon  the  true 
policy  of  the  South  either  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it, 
I  should  expect  to  see  just  as  much  profitless  dis 
cussion,  disagreement,  crimination,  and  recrimina 
tion  amongst  the  members  of  it  from  different 
states  and  from  the  same  state,  as  we  witness  in 
the  present  House  of  Representatives  between 
Democrats,  Republicans,  and  Americans." 

Among  the  sources  of  confusion  Stephens  saw, 
close  at  home,  the  Southern  battle  over  the  reopen 
ing  of  the  slave  trade.  The  reality  of  that  issue 
had  been  made  plain  in  May,  1859,  when  the 
Southern  commercial  congress  at  Vicksburg  en- 


62  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

tertained  at  the  same  time  two  resolutions:  one, 
that  the  convention  should  urge  all  Southern 
States  to  amend  their  constitutions  by  a  clause 
prohibiting  the  increase  of  African  slavery;  the 
other,  that  the  convention  urge  all  the  Legislatures 
of  Southern  States  to  present  memorials  to  Con 
gress  asking  the  repeal  of  the  law  against  African 
slave  trade.  Of  these  opposed  resolutions,  the 
latter  was  adopted  on  the  last  day  of  the  conven 
tion,  l  though  the  moderates  fought  hard  against  it. 
The  split  between  Southern  moderates  and 
Southern  radicals  was  further  indicated  by  their 
differing  attitudes  toward  the  adventurers  from 
the  United  States  in  Central  America.  The  Vicks- 
burg  Convention  adopted  resolutions  which  were 
thinly  veiled  endorsements  of  southward  expan 
sion.  In  the  early  autumn  another  Nicaraguan  ex 
pedition  was  nipped  in  the  bud  by  the  vigilance  of 
American  naval  forces.  Cobb,  prime  factor  in  the 
group  of  Southern  moderates  as  well  as  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  wrote  to  Buchanan  expressing  his 
satisfaction  at  the  event,  mentioning  the  work  of 
his  own  department  in  bringing  it  about,  and  also 

1  It  is  significant  that  the  composition  of  these  Southern  com 
mercial  congresses  and  the  Congress  of  the  whole  Southern  people 
was  strikingly  different  in  personnel.  Very  few  members  of  the 
commercial  congresses  reappear  in  the  Confederate  Congress. 


THE  CRISIS  63 

alluding  to  his  arrangments  to  prevent  slave  trad 
ing  off  the  Florida  coast. 

But  the  spirit  of  doubt  was  strong  even  among 
the  moderates.  Douglas  was  the  target.  Stephens 
gives  a  glimpse  of  it  in  a  letter  written  during 
his  last  session  in  Congress.  "Cobb  called  on  me 
Saturday  night,"  he  writes.  "He  is  exceedingly 
bitter  against  Douglas.  I  joked  him  a  good  deal, 
and  told  him  he  had  better  not  fight,  or  he  would 
certainly  be  whipped;  that  is,  in  driving  Douglas 
out  of  the  Democratic  party.  He  said  that  if 
Douglas  ever  was  restored  to  the  confidence  of  the 
Democracy  of  Georgia,  it  would  be  over  his  dead 
body  politically.  This  shows  his  excitement,  that 
is  all.  I  laughed  at  him,  and  told  him  he  would 
run  his  feelings  and  his  policy  into  the  ground." 
The  anger  of  Cobb,  who  was  himself  a  confessed 
candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomination,  was  im 
periling  the  Democratic  national  machine  which 
Toombs  was  still  struggling  so  resolutely  to  hold 
together.  Indeed,  as  late  as  the  autumn  of  1859 
the  machine  still  held  together. 

Then  came  the  man  of  destiny,  the  bolt  from  the 
blue,  the  end  of  the  chapter.  A  marvelous  fanatic 
—  a  sort  of  reincarnation  of  the  grimmest  of  the 
Covenanters  —  by  one  daring  act  shattered  the 


64  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

machine  and  made  impossible  any  further  coali 
tion  on  the  principle  of  "nothing  doing."  This 
man  of  destiny  was  John  Brown,  whose  attack  on 
Harper's  Ferry  took  place  October  16th,  and 
whose  execution  by  the  authorities  of  Virginia  on 
the  charges  of  murder  and  treason  occurred  on 
the  2nd  of  December. 

The  incident  filled  the  South  with  consternation. 
The  prompt  condemnation  of  it  by  many  Republi 
can  leaders  did  not  offset,  in  the  minds  of  South 
erners,  the  fury  of  praise  accorded  by  others. 
The  South  had  a  ghastly  tradition  derived  chiefly 
from  what  is  known  as  Nat  Turner's  Rebellion 
in  Virginia,  a  tradition  of  the  massacre  of  white 
women  and  children  by  negroes.  As  Brown  had 
set  out  to  rouse  a  slave  rebellion,  every  Southerner 
familiar  with  his  own  traditions  shuddered,  identi 
fying  in  imagination  John  Brown  and  Nat  Turner. 
Horror  became  rage  when  the  Southerners  heard 
of  enthusiastic  applause  in  Boston  and  of  Emer 
son's  description  of  Brown  as  "that  new  saint" 
who  was  to  "make  the  gallows  glorious  like  the 
cross."  In  the  excitement  produced  by  remarks 
such  as  this,  justice  was  not  done  to  Lincoln's 
censure.  In  his  speech  at  Cooper  Institute  in 
New  York,  in  February,  1860,  Lincoln  had  said: 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Photograph  by  Brady,  taken  at  the  time  of  Lincoln's  Cooper  In 
stitute  speech,  February  27,  1860.  Lincoln  frequently  remarked  that 
this  portrait  and  the  Cooper  Institute  speech  made  him  President. 


64  LINCOLN  AND  THE  i'MOX 

machine  and  made  impossible  any  further  coali- 
tion  on  the  principle  of  "nothing  doing. '  This 
man  of  destmy  was  John  Brown  h tack  on 

Harpers    Ferry    took   place   Oc<o  and 

whose  execution  by  the  authorities  o/      .Tjr-r 
the  charges  of  murder  and  treason  occurred  on 

The  incident  filled  the  South  with  consternation. 
The  prompt  condemnation  of  it  by  many  Republi- 

car.  not  offset,  Lu  the  minds  of  South- 

ViAOOYAl  UK\\KS\ak 

erners,    the   fury   of  praise   accorded  by  others. 

-nl  ^qoo'v^a'nfopnijl  Iq  9raiJ,9ilJ  1p  nsd&j  jX^n 
' ' 


in  Virginia,  a  tradition  of  the  massacre  of  white 
w<>;  cnilclren  by  negroes.     As  JtJrown  nad. 

set  out  to  rouse  a  slave  rebellion,  every  Southerner 
familiar  with  his  own  trad  oti- 

Horror  became  rage  when  '  'd 

of  enthusiastic  applause  in  Bo*to&  and  r      ,mef- 
son  s  description  of  Urowii  n*>     H»;\t  •:  •  «   .^nint 
who  was  to  "make  the  gallows  glorl-       like 'the 
cross."    In  the  excitement  produced  by  remarks 
such  as  this,  justice  w&s  not  done  to  Lincoln's 

. 
York,  in  February,  1860,  Lincoln  had  ^*id 


THE  CRISIS  65 

"John  Brown's  effort  ...  in  its  philosophy  cor 
responds  with  the  many  attempts  related  in  history 
at  the  assassination  of  kings  and  emperors.  An 
enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppression  of  a  people, 
until  he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven 
to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the  attempt  which 
ends  in  little  else  than  in  his  own  execution. "  A 
few  months  afterwards,  the  Republican  national 
convention  condemned  the  act  of  Brown  as  "among 
the  gravest  of  crimes." 

An  immediate  effect  of  the  John  Brown  episode 
was  a  passionate  outburst  from  all  the  radical 
press  of  the  South  in  defense  of  slavery.  The  fol 
lowers  of  Yancey  made  the  most  of  their  opportu 
nity.  The  men  who  voted  at  Vicksburg  to  reopen 
the  slave  trade  could  find  no  words  to  measure 
their  hatred  of  every  one  who,  at  this  moment  of 
crisis,  would  not  declare  slavery  a  blessing.  Many 
of  the  men  who  opposed  the  slave  traders  also  felt 
that,  in  the  face  of  possible  slave  insurrection,  the 
peril  of  their  families  was  the  one  paramount  con 
sideration.  Nevertheless,  it  is  easy  for  the  special 
pleader  to  give  a  wrong  impression  of  the  sentiment 
of  the  time.  A  grim  desire  for  self-preservation 
took  possession  of  the  South,  as  well  as  a  deadly 
fear  of  any  person  or  any  thing  that  tended  directly 


66  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

or  indirectly  to  incite  the  blacks  to  insurrection. 
Northerners  of  abolitionist  sympathies  were  warned 
to  leave  the  country,  and  in  some  cases  they  were 
tarred  and  feathered.  Great  anger  was  aroused 
by  the  detection  of  book-agents  who  were  distribut 
ing  a  furious  polemic  against  slavery,  The  Impend 
ing  Crisis  of  the  South:  How  to  Meet  It,  by  Hinton 
Rowan  Helper,  a  Southerner  of  inferior  social  posi 
tion  belonging  to  the  class  known  as  poor  whites. 
The  book  teemed  with  such  sentences  as  this, 
addressing  slaveholders:  "Do  you  aspire  to  be 
come  victims  of  white  non-slave-holding  vengeance 
by  day  and  of  barbarous  massacres  by  the  negroes 
at  night?"  It  is  scarcely  strange,  therefore,  that 
in  1859  no  Southerner  would  hear  a  good  word  of 
anyone  caught  distributing  the  book.  And  yet, 
in  the  midst  of  all  this  vehement  exaltation  of 
slavery,  the  fight  to  prevent  a  reopening  of  the 
slave  trade  went  bravely  on.  Stephens,  writing  to  a 
friend  who  was  correspondent  for  the  Southern  Con 
federacy,  in  Atlanta,  warned  him  in  April,  1860, 
"neither  to  advocate  disunion  or  the  opening  of  the 
slave  trade.  The  people  here  at  present  I  believe 
are  as  much  opposed  to  it  as  they  are  at  the  North; 
and  I  believe  the  Northern  people  could  be  in 
duced  to  open  it  sooner  than  the  Southern  people. " 


THE  CRISIS  67 

The  winter  of  1859-1860  witnessed  a  famous  con 
gressional  battle  over  the  speakership.  The  new 
Congress  which  met  in  December  contained  109 
Republicans,  101  Democrats,  and  27  Know-Noth- 
ings.  The  Republican  candidate  for  speaker  was 
John  Sherman  of  Ohio.  As  the  first  ballot  showed 
that  he  could  not  command  a  majority,  a  Demo 
crat  from  Missouri  introduced  this  resolution: 
"Whereas  certain  members  of  this  House,  now 
in  nomination  for  speaker,  did  endorse  the  book 
hereinafter  mentioned,  Resolved,  That  the  doc 
trines  and  sentiments  of  a  certain  book,  called 
The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South:  How  to  Meet  It, 
are  insurrectionary  and  hostile  to  the  peace  and 
tranquillity  of  the  country,  and  that  no  member 
of  this  House,  who  has  indorsed  or  recommended 
it,  is  fit  to  be  speaker  of  the  House. " 

During  two  months  there  were  strange  scenes  in 
the  House,  while  the  clerk  acted  as  temporary 
speaker  and  furious  diatribes  were  thundered  back 
and  forth  across  the  aisle  that  separated  Repub 
licans  from  Democrats,  with  a  passage  of  fisticuffs 
or  even  a  drawn  pistol  to  add  variety  to  the  scene. 
The  end  of  it  all  was  a  deal.  Pennington,  of  the 
"People's  Party"  of  New  Jersey,  who  had  sup 
ported  Sherman  but  had  not  endorsed  Helper, 


68  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

was  given  the  Republican  support;  a  Know-No  th 
ing  was  made  sergeant-at-arms;  and  Know-Noth- 
ing  votes  added  to  the  Republican  votes  made 
Pennington  speaker.  In  many  Northern  cities 
the  news  of  his  election  was  greeted  with  the  great 
salute  of  a  hundred  guns,  but  at  Richmond  the 
papers  came  out  in  mourning  type. 

Two  great  figures  now  advanced  to  the  center  of 
the  Congressional  stage — Jefferson  Davis,  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  a  lean  eagle  of  a  man  with  pierc 
ing  blue  eyes,  and  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  Senator 
from  Louisiana,  whose  perpetual  smile  cloaked 
an  intellect  that  was  nimble,  keen,  and  ruthless. 
Both  men  were  destined  to  play  leading  rdles  in 
the  lofty  drama  of  revolution;  each  was  to  expe 
rience  a  tragic  ending  of  his  political  hope,  one  in 
exile,  the  other  in  a  solitary  proscription  amid  the 
ruins  of  the  society  for  which  he  had  sacrified  his 
all.  These  men,  though  often  spoken  of  as  mere 
mouthpieces  of  Yancey,  were  in  reality  quite  dif 
ferent  from  him  both  in  temper  and  in  point  of 
view. 

Davis,  who  was  destined  eventually  to  become 
the  target  of  Yancey's  bitterest  enmity,  had  re 
fused  ten  years  before  to  join  in  the  secession 
movement  which  ignored  Calhoun's  doctrine  that 


THE  CRISIS  69 

the  South  had  become  a  social  unit.  Though  a 
believer  in  slavery  under  the  conditions  of  the 
moment,  Davis  had  none  of  the  passion  of  the 
slave  baron  for  slavery  at  all  costs.  Furthermore, 
as  events  were  destined  to  show  in  a  startlingly 
dramatic  way,  he  was  careless  of  South  Carolina's 
passion  for  state  rights.  He  was  a  practical  poli 
tician,  but  not  at  all  the  old  type  of  the  party  of 
political  evasion,  the  type  of  Toombs.  No  other 
man  of  the  moment  was  on  the  whole  so  well 
able  to  combine  the  elements  of  Southern  politics 
against  those  more  negative  elements  of  which 
Toombs  was  the  symbol.  The  history  of  the  Con 
federacy  shows  that  the  combination  which  Davis 
now  effected  was  not  as  thorough  as  he  supposed 
it  was.  But  at  the  moment  he  appeared  to  succeed 
and  seemed  to  give  common  purpose  to  the  vast 
majority  of  the  Southern  people.  With  his  ally 
Benjamin,  he  struck  at  the  Toombs  policy  of  a 
National  Democratic  party. 

On  the  day  following  the  election  of  Pennington. 
Davis  introduced  in  the  Senate  a  series  of  reso 
lutions  which  were  to  serve  as  the  Southern  ulti 
matum,  and  which  demanded  of  Congress  the 
protection  of  slavery  against  territorial  legislatures. 
This  was  but  carrying  to  its  logical  conclusion  that 


70  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Dred  Scott  decision  which  Douglas  and  his  follow 
ers  proposed  to  accept.  If  Congress  could  not 
restrict  slavery  in  the  territories,  how  could  its 
creature,  a  territorial  legislature  do  so?  And  yet 
the  Douglas  men  attempted  to  take  away  the 
power  from  Congress  and  to  retain  it  for  the  ter 
ritorial  legislatures.  Senator  Pugh  of  Ohio  had 
already  locked  horns  with  Davis  on  this  point,  and 
had  attempted  to  show  that  a  territorial  legis 
lature  was  independent  of  Congress.  "Then  I 
would  ask  the  Senator  further, "  retorted  the  logical 
Davis,  "why  it  is  he  makes  an  appropriation  to 
pay  members  of  the  territorial  legislature;  how  it 
is  that  he  invests  the  Governor  with  veto  power 
over  their  acts;  and  how  it  is  that  he  appoints 
judges  to  decide  upon  the  validity  of  their  acts. " 

In  the  Democratic  convention  which  met  at 
Charleston  in  April,  1860,  the  waning  power  of 
political  evasion  made  its  last  real  stand  against 
the  rising  power  of  political  positivism.  To  accept 
Douglas  and  the  idea  that  somehow  territorial  leg 
islatures  were  free  to  do  what  Congress  could  not 
do,  or  to  reject  Douglas  and  endorse  Davis's  ulti 
matum —  that  in  substance  was  the  issue.  "In 
this  convention  where  there  should  be  confidence 
and  harmony,"  said  the  Charleston  Mercury,  "it  is 


THE  CRISIS  71 

plain  that  men  feel  as  if  they  were  going  into  a 
battle."  In  the  committee  on  resolutions  where 
the  States  were  equally  represented,  the  majority 
were  anti-Douglas;  they  submitted  a  report  affirm 
ing  Davis's  position  that  territorial  legislatures  had 
no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  and  that  the  Federal 
Government  should  protect  slavery  against  them. 
The  minority  refused  to  go  further  than  an  ap 
proval  of  the  Dred  Scott  case  and  a  pledge  to 
abide  by  all  future  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
After  both  reports  had  been  submitted,  there  fol 
lowed  the  central  event  of  the  convention  —  the 
now  famous  speech  by  Yancey  which  repudiated 
political  evasion  from  top  to  bottom,  frankly  de 
fended  slavery,  and  demanded  either  complete 
guarantees  for  its  continued  existence  or,  as  an 
alternative,  Southern  independence.  Pugh  in 
stantly  replied  and  summed  up  Yancey's  speech 
as  a  demand  upon  Northern  Democrats  to  say 
that  slavery  was  right,  and  that  it  was  their  duty 
not  only  to  let  slavery  alone  but  to  aid  in  extend 
ing  it.  "Gentlemen  of  the  South,"  he  exclaimed, 
"you  mistake  us — you  mistake  us  —  we  will  not 
doit." 

In  the  full  convention,  where  the  representation 
of  the  States  was  not  equal,  the  Douglas  men,  after 


72  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

hot  debate,  forced  the  adoption  of  the  minority 
report.  Thereupon  the  Alabama  delegation  pro 
tested  and  formally  withdrew  from  the  conven 
tion,  and  other  delegations  followed.  There  was 
wild  excitement  in  Charleston,  where  that  even 
ing  in  the  streets  Yancey  addressed  crowds  that 
cheered  for  a  Southern  republic.  The  remaining 
history  of  the  Democratic  nominations  is  a  matter 
of  detail.  The  Charleston  convention  adjourned 
without  making  nominations.  Each  of  its  frag 
ments  reorganized  as  a  separate  convention,  and 
ultimately  two  Democratic  tickets  were  put  into 
the  field,  with  Breckinridge  of  Kentucky  as  the 
candidate  on  the  Yancey  ticket  and  Douglas  on 
the  other. 

While  the  Democrats  were  thus  making  history 
through  their  fateful  break-up  into  separate  parties, 
a  considerable  number  of  the  so-called  best  people 
of  the  country  determined  that  they  had  nowhere 
politically  to  lay  their  heads.  A  few  of  the  old 
Whigs  were  still  unable  to  consort  either  with  Re 
publicans  or  with  Democrats,  old  or  new.  The 
Know-Nothings,  likewise,  though  their  number 
had  been  steadily  melting  away,  had  not  entirely 
disappeared.  To  unite  these  political  remnants  in 
any  definite  political  whole  seemed  beyond  human 


THE  CRISIS  73 

ingenuity.  A  common  sentiment,  however,  they 
did  have  —  a  real  love  of  the  Union  and  a  real  un- 
happiness,  because  its  existence  appeared  to  be 
threatened.  The  outcome  was  that  they  organized 
the  Constitutional  Union  Party,  nominating  for 
President  John  Bell  of  Tennessee,  and  for  Vice- 
President  Edward  Everett  of  Massachusetts. 
Their  platform  was  little  more  than  a  profession 
of  love  of  the  Union  and  a  condemnation  of 
sectional  selfishness. 

This  Bell  and  Everett  ticket  has  a  deeper  sig 
nificance  than  has  generally  been  admitted.  It 
reveals  the  fact  that  the  sentiment  of  Union,  in 
distinction  from  the  belief  in  the  Union,  had  be 
come  a  real  force  in  American  life.  There  could 
be  no  clearer  testimony  to  the  strength  of  this  feel 
ing  than  this  spectacle  of  a  great  congregation  of 
moderate  people,  unable  to  agree  upon  anything 
except  this  sentiment,  stepping  between  the  sec 
tional  parties  like  a  resolute  wayfarer  going  for 
ward  into  darkness  along  a  perilous  strand  between 
two  raging  seas.  That  this  feeling  of  Union  was 
the  same  thing  as  the  eager  determination  of  the 
Republicans,  in  1860,  to  control  the  Government  is 
one  of  those  historical  fallacies  that  have  had  their 
day.  The  Republican  party  became,  in  time  and 


74  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

under  stress  of  war,  the  refuge  of  this  sentiment 
and  proved  sufficiently  far-sighted  to  merge  its 
identity  temporarily  in  the  composite  Union  party 
of  1864.  But  in  1860  it  was  still  a  sectional  party. 
Among  its  leaders  Lincoln  was  perhaps  the  only 
Unionist  in  the  same  sense  as  Bell  and  Everett. 

Perhaps  the  truest  Unionists  of  the  North,  out 
side  the  Constitutional  Union  Party,  in  1860,  were 
those  Democrats  in  the  following  of  Douglas  who, 
after  fighting  to  the  last  ditch  against  both  the 
sectional  parties,  were  to  accept,  in  1861,  the  al 
ternative  of  war  rather  than  dissolution.  The 
course  of  Douglas  himself,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
showed  that  in  his  mind  there  was  a  fixed  limit  of 
concession  beyond  which  he  could  not  go.  When 
circumstances  forced  him  to  that  limit,  the  senti 
ment  of  Union  took  control  of  him,  swept  aside 
his  political  jugglery,  abolished  his  time-serving, 
and  drove  him  into  cooperation  with  his  bitterest 
foes  that  the  Union  might  be  saved.  Nor  was  the 
pure  sentiment  of  Union  confined  to  the  North 
and  West.  Though  undoubtedly  the  sentiment  of 
locality  was  more  powerful  through  the  South,  yet 
when  the  test  came  in  the  election  of  1860,  the 
leading  candidate  of  the  upper  South,  in  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  was  John  Bell,  the  Con- 


THE  CRISIS  75 

stitutional  Unionist.  In  every  Southern  State  this 
sentiment  was  able  to  command  a  considerable 
part  of  the  vote. r 

Widely  different  in  temper  were  those  stern  and 
resolute  men  whose  organization,  in  perfect  fight 
ing  trim,  faced  eagerly  the  divided  Democrats. 
The  Republicans  had  no  division  among  themselves 
upon  doctrine.  Such  division  as  existed  was  due  to 
the  ordinary  rivalry  of  political  leaders.  In  the 
opinion  of  all  his  enemies  and  of  most  Americans, 
Seward  was  the  Republican  man  of  the  hour. 
During  much  of  1859  he  had  discreetly  withdrawn 
from  the  country  and  had  left  to  his  partisans  the 
conduct  of  his  campaign,  which  seems  to  have 
been  going  well  when  he  returned  in  the  midst  of 
the  turmoil  following  the  death  of  John  Brown. 
Nevertheless  he  was  disturbed  over  his  prospects, 
for  he  found  that  in  many  minds,  both  North  and 
South,  he  was  looked  upon  as  the  ultimate  cause 
of  all  the  turmoil.  His  famous  speech  on  the  "ir 
repressible  conflict"  was  everywhere  quoted  as  an 
exultant  prophecy  of  these  terrible  latter  days. 

It  was  long  the  custom  to  deny  to  Seward  any 

1  A  possible  exception  was  South  Carolina.  As  the  presidential 
electors  were  appointed  by  the  legislature,  there  is  no  certain  record  of 
minority  sentiment. 


76  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

good  motive  in  a  speech  which  he  now  delivered, 
just  as  it  was  to  deny  Webster  any  good  motive 
for  his  famous  7th  of  March  speech.  But  such 
criticism  is  now  less  frequent  than  it  used  to  be. 
Both  men  were  seeking  the  Presidency;  both,  we 
may  fairly  believe,  were  shocked  by  the  turmoil  of 
political  currents;  each  tried  oiling  the  waters,  and 
in  the  attempt  each  ruined  his  candidacy.  Sew 
ard 's  speech  in  condemnation  of  John  Brown  in 
February,  1860,  was  an  appeal  to  the  conservative 
North  against  the  radical  North,  and  to  many 
of  his  followers  it  seemed  a  change  of  front.  It 
certainly  gained  him  no  new  friends  and  it  lost 
him  some  old  ones,  so  that  his  star  as  a  presiden 
tial  candidate  began  its  decline. 

The  first  ballot  in  the  Republican  convention 
surprised  the  country.  Of  the  votes,  233  were 
necessary  for  a  choice.  Seward  had  only  173j^. 
Next  to  him,  with  102  votes,  stood  none  of  the 
leading  candidates,  but  the  comparatively  obscure 
Lincoln.  A  gap  of  more  than  50  votes  separated 
Lincoln  from  Cameron,  Chase,  and  Bates.  On  the 
second  ballot  Seward  gained  11  votes,  while  Lin 
coln  gained  79.  The  enemies  of  Seward,  finding 
it  impossible  to  combine  on  any  of  the  conspicuous 
candidates,  were  moving  toward  Lincoln,  the  man 


THE  CRISIS  77 

with  fewest  enemies.  The  third  ballot  gave  Lin 
coln  the  nomination. 

We  have  seen  that  one  of  the  basal  questions 
of  the  time  was  which  new  political  group  should 
absorb  the  Whig  remainder.  The  Constitutional 
Union  party  aimed  to  accomplish  this.  The  Re 
publicans  sought  to  out-maneuver  them.  They 
made  their  platform  as  temperate  as  they  could 
and  yet  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  their 
opposition  to  Douglas  and  popular  sovereignty; 
and  they  went  no  further  in  their  anti-slavery 
demands  than  that  the  territories  should  be  pre 
served  for  free  labor. 

Another  basal  question  had  been  considered  in 
the  Republican  platform.  Where  would  Northern 
capital  stand  in  the  reorganization  of  parties? 
Was  capital,  like  men,  to  become  frankly  sectional 
or  would  it  remain  impersonal,  careless  how  nations 
rose  or  fell,  so  long  as  dividends  continued?  To 
some  extent  capital  had  given  an  answer.  When, 
in  the  excitement  following  the  John  Brown  inci 
dent,  a  Southern  newspaper  published  a  white  list 
of  New  York  merchants  whose  political  views 
should  commend  them  to  Southerners,  and  a  black 
list  of  those  who  were  objectionable,  many  New 
Yorkers  sought  a  place  in  the  white  list.  Northern 


78  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

capital  had  done  its  part  in  financing  the  revived 
slave  trade.  August  Belmont,  the  New  York  re 
presentative  of  the  Rothschilds,  was  one  of  the 
close  allies  of  Davis,  Yancey,  and  Benjamin  in 
their  war  upon  Douglas.  In  a  word,  a  great  por 
tion  of  Northern  capital  had  its  heart  where  its 
investments  were  —  in  the  South.  But  there  was 
other  capital  which  obeyed  the  same  law,  and 
which  had  investments  in  the  North;  and  with 
this  capital  the  Republicans  had  been  trafficking. 
They  had  succeeded  in  winning  over  the  power 
ful  manufacturing  interests  of  Pennsylvania,  the 
pivotal  State  that  had  elected  Buchanan  in  1856. 

The  steps  by  which  the  new  party  of  enthusi 
asm  made  its  deal  with  the  body  of  capital  which 
was  not  at  one  with  Belmont  and  the  Democrats 
are  not  essential  to  the  present  narrative.  Two 
facts  suffice.  In  1857  a  great  collapse  in  American 
business  —  "the  panic  of  fifty-seven"  —  led  the 
commercial  world  to  turn  to  the  party  in  power 
for  some  scheme  of  redress.  But  their  very  prin 
ciples,  among  which  was  non-intervention  in  busi 
ness,  made  the  Democrats  feeble  doctors  for  such 
a  need,  and  they  evaded  the  situation.  The  Re 
publicans,  with  their  insistence  on  positivism  in 
government,  had  therefore  an  opportunity  to  make 


THE  CRISIS  79 

a  new  application  of  the  doctrine  of  governmental 
aid  to  business.  In  the  spring  of  1860,  the  Re 
publican  House  of  Representatives  passed  the 
Morrill  tariff  bill,  consideration  of  which  was  post 
poned  by  the  Democratic  Senate.  But  it  served 
its  purpose:  it  was  a  Republican  manifesto.  The 
Republicans  felt  that  this  bill,  together  with  their 
party  platform,  gave  the  necessary  guarantee  to 
the  Pennsylvania  manufacturers,  and  they  there 
fore  entered  the  campaign  confident  they  would 
carry  Pennsylvania  —  nor  was  their  confidence 
misplaced. 

The  campaign  was  characterized  by  three  things : 
by  an  ominous  quiet  coupled  with  great  intensity 
of  feeling;  by  the  organization  of  huge  party  so 
cieties  in  military  form  -  "  Wide-awakes  "  for  Lin 
coln,  numbering  400,000,  and  "Minute  Men"  for 
Breckinridge,  with  a  membership  chiefly  South 
ern;  and  by  the  perfect  frankness,  in  all  parts  of 
the  South,  of  threats  of  secession  in  case  the  Re 
publicans  won. 

In  none  of  the  States  which  eventually  seceded 
were  any  votes  cast  for  Lincoln,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  a  small  number  in  Virginia.  In  almost  all 
the  other  Southern  States  and  in  the  slave-hold 
ing  border  States,  all  the  other  candidates  made 


80  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

respectable  showings.  In  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and 
Kentucky,  Bell  led.  But  everywhere  else  in  the 
other  slave-holding  States  Breckinridge  led,  ex 
cepting  in  Missouri  where  Douglas  won  by  a  few 
hundred.  Every  free  State  except  New  Jersey 
went  for  Lincoln.  And  yet  he  did  not  have  a  ma 
jority  of  the  popular  vote,  which  stood:  Lincoln, 
1,866,452;  Douglas,  1,376,957;  Breckinridge,  849,- 
781;  Bell,  588,879. '  The  majority  against  Lincoln 
was  nearly  a  million.  The  distribution  of  the  votes 
was  such  that  Lincoln  had  in  the  Electoral  College, 
180  electors;  Breckinridge,  72;  Bell,  39;  Douglas, 
12.  In  neither  House  of  Congress  did  the  Repub 
licans  have  a  majority. 

1  The  figures  of  the  popular  vote  are  variously  given  by  different 
compilers.  These  are  taken  from  Stanwood,  A  History  of  the  Presi 
dency. 


CHAPTER  V 

SECESSION 

IN  tracing  American  history  from  1854  to  1860 
we  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  it  reduces  itself 
chiefly  to  a  problem  in  that  science  which  poli 
ticians  understand  so  well  —  applied  psychology. 
Definite  types  of  men  moulded  by  the  conditions 
of  those  days  are  the  determining  factors  —  not 
the  slavery  question  in  itself;  not,  primarily,  eco 
nomic  forces;  not  a  theory  of  government,  nor 
a  clash  of  theories;  not  any  one  thing;  but  the 
fluid,  changeful  forces  of  human  nature,  battling 
with  circumstances  and  expressing  themselves  in 
the  fashion  of  men's  minds.  To  say  this  is  to  ac 
knowledge  the  fatefulness  of  sheer  feeling.  Davis 
described  the  situation  exactly  when  he  said,  in 
1860,  "A  sectional  hostility  has  been  substituted 
for  a  general  fraternity."  To  his  own  question, 
"Where  is  the  remedy?"  he  gave  the  answer,  "In 
the  hearts  of  the  people. "  There,  after  all,  is  the 

6  81 


82  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

conclusion  of  the  whole  matter.  The  strife  be 
tween  North  and  South  had  ceased  to  be  a  thing 
of  the  head;  it  had  become  a  thing  of  the  heart. 
Granted  the  emotions  of  1860,  the  way  in  which  our 
country  staggered  into  war  has  all  the  terrible 
fascination  of  a  tragedy  on  the  theme  of  fate. 

That  a  secession  movement  would  begin  some 
where  in  the  South  before  the  end  of  1860  was 
a  foregone  conclusion.  South  Carolina  was  the 
logical  place,  and  in  South  Carolina  the  inevitable 
occurred.  The  presidential  election  was  quickly 
followed  by  an  election  of  delegates,  on  the  6th 
of  December,  to  consider  in  convention  the  rela 
tions  of  the  State  with  the  Union.  The  arguments 
before  the  Convention  were  familiar  and  had  been 
advocated  since  1851.  The  leaders  of  the  dis- 
unionists  were  the  same  who  had  led  the  unsuccess 
ful  movement  of  ten  years  before.  The  central 
figure  was  Rhett,  who  never  for  a  moment  had 
wavered.  Consumed  his  life  long  by  the  one  idea 
of  the  independence  of  South  Carolina,  that  stern 
enthusiast  pressed  on  to  a  triumphant  conclusion. 
The  powers  which  had  defeated  him  in  1851  were 
now  either  silent  or  converted,  so  that  there  was 
practically  no  opposition.  In  a  burst  of  pas 
sionate  zeal  the  independence  of  South  Carolina 


SECESSION  83 

was  proclaimed  on  December  20, 1860,  by  an  ordi 
nance  of  secession. 

Simultaneously,  by  one  of  those  dramatic  coin 
cidences  which  make  history  stranger  than  fiction, 
Lincoln  took  a  step  which  supplemented  this  ac 
tion  and  established  its  tragic  significance.  What 
that  step  was  will  appear  in  a  moment. 

Even  before  the  secession  began,  various  types 
of  men  in  politics  had  begun  to  do  each  after 
his  kind.  Those  whom  destiny  drove  first  into  a 
corner  were  the  lovers  of  political  evasion.  The 
issue  was  forced  upon  them  by  the  instantaneous 
demand  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  for  pos 
session  of  forts  in  Charleston  Harbor  which  were 
controlled  by  the  Federal  Government.  Antici 
pating  such  a  demand,  Major  Robert  Anderson, 
the  commandant  at  Charleston,  had  written  to 
Buchanan  on  the  23d  of  November  that  "Fort 
Sumter  and  Castle  Pinckney  must  be  garrisoned 
immediately,  if  the  Government  determines  to 
keep  command  of  this  harbor. " 

In  the  mind  of  every  American  of  the  party  of 
political  evasion,  there  now  began  a  sad,  internal 
conflict.  Every  one  of  them  had  to  choose  among 
three  courses:  to  shut  his  eyes  and  to  continue 
to  wail  that  the  function  of  government  is  to  do 


84  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

nothing;  to  make  an  end  of  political  evasion  and 
to  come  out  frankly  in  approval  of  the  Southern 
position;  or  to  break  with  his  own  record,  to  emerge 
from  his  evasions  on  the  opposite  side,  and  to 
confess  himself  first  and  before  all  a  supporter  of 
the  Union.  One  or  another  of  these  three  courses, 
sooner  or  later,  every  man  of  the  President's  fol 
lowing  chose.  We  shall  see  presently  the  relative 
strength  of  the  three  groups  into  which  that  fol 
lowing  broke  and  what  strange  courses  —  some 
times  tragic,  sometimes  comic  —  two  of  the  three 
pursued.  For  the  moment  our  concern  is  how  the 
division  manifested  itself  among  the  heads  of  the 
party  at  Washington. 

The  President  took  the  first  of  the  three  courses. 
He  held  it  with  the  nervous  clutch  of  a  weak  nature 
until  overmastered  by  two  grim  men  who  gradually 
hypnotized  his  will.  The  turning-point  for  Bu 
chanan,  and  the  last  poor  crisis  in  his  inglorious 
career,  came  on  Sunday,  December  30th.  Before 
that  day  arrived,  his  vacillation  had  moved  his 
friends  to  pity  and  his  enemies  to  scorn.  One  of 
his  best  friends  wrote  privately,  "The  President 
is  pale  with  fear";  and  the  hostile  point  of  view 
found  expression  in  such  comments  as  this,  "Buch 
anan,  it  is  said,  divides  his  time  between  praying 


SECESSION  85 

and  crying.  Such  a  perfect  imbecile  never  held 
office  before." 

With  the  question  what  to  do  about  the  forts 
hanging  over  his  bewildered  soul,  Buchanan  sent 
a  message  to  Congress  on  December  4,  1860,  in 
which  he  sought  to  defend  the  traditional  evasive 
policy  of  his  party.  He  denied  the  constitutional 
right  of  secession,  but  he  was  also  denied  his  own 
right  to  oppose  such  a  course.  Seward  was  not 
unfair  to  the  mental  caliber  of  the  message  when 
he  wrote  to  his  wife  that  Buchanan  showed  "con 
clusively  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  to 
execute  the  laws  —  unless  somebody  opposes  him; 
and  that  no  State  has  a  right  to  go  out  of  the 
Union  —  unless  it  wants  to. " 

This  message  of  Buchanan's  hastened  the  in 
evitable  separation  of  the  Democratic  party  into 
its  elements.  The  ablest  Southern  member  of  the 
Cabinet,  Cobb,  resigned.  He  was  too  strong  an 
intellect  to  continue  the  policy  of  "nothing  doing" 
now  that  the  crisis  had  come.  He  was  too  de 
voted  a  Southerner  to  come  out  of  political  evas 
ion  except  on  one  side.  On  the  day  Cobb  resign 
ed  the  South  Carolina  Representatives  called  on 
Buchanan  and  asked  him  not  to  make  any  change 
in  the  disposition  of  troops  at  Charleston,  and  par- 


86  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

ticularly  not  to  strengthen  Sumter,  a  fortress  on  an 
island  in  the  midst  of  the  harbor,  without  at  least 
giving  notice  to  the  state  authorities.  What  was 
said  in  this  interview  was  not  put  in  writing  but 
was  remembered  afterward  in  different  ways  — 
with  unfortunate  consequences. 

Every  action  of  Buchanan  in  this  fateful  month 
continued  the  disintegration  of  his  following.  Just 
as  Cobb  had  to  choose  between  his  reasonings  as  a 
Democratic  party  man  and  his  feelings  as  a^South- 
erner,  so  the  aged  Cass,  his  Secretary  of  State,  and 
an  old  personal  friend,  now  felt  constrained  to 
choose  between  his  Democratic  reasoning  and  his 
Northern  sympathies,  and  resigned  from  the  Cab 
inet  on  the  llth  of  December.  Buchanan  then 
turned  instinctively  to  the  strongest  natures  that 
remained  among  his  close  associates.  It  is  a  com 
pliment  to  the  innate  force  of  Jeremiah  S.  Black, 
the  Attorney-General,  that  Buchanan  advanced 
him  to  the  post  of  Secretary  of  State  and  allowed 
him  to  name  as  his  successor  in  the  Attorney- 
Generalship  Edwin  M.  Stanton.  Both  were  tried 
Democrats  of  the  old  style,  "let-'em-alone"  sort; 
and  both  had  supported  the  President  in  his  Kan 
sas  policy.  But  each,  like  every  other  member 
of  his  party,  was  being  forced  by  circumstances 


SECESSION  87 

to  make  his  choice  among  the  three  inevitable 
courses,  and  each  chose  the  Northern  side.  At 
once  the  question  of  the  moment  was  whether  the 
new  Secretary  of  State  and  his  powerful  hench 
men  would  hypnotize  the  President. 

For  a  couple  of  weeks  the  issue  hung  in  the  bal 
ance.  Then  there  appeared  at  Washington  com 
missioners  from  South  Carolina  "empowered  to 
treat  ...  for  the  delivery  of  forts  .  .  .  and 
other  real  estate'*  held  by  the  Federal  Government 
within  their  State.  On  the  day  following  their 
arrival,  Buchanan  was  informed  by  telegraph  that 
Anderson  had  dismantled  Fort  Moultrie  on  the 
north  side  of  the  harbor,  had  spiked  its  guns,  and 
had  removed  its  garrison  to  the  island  fortress, 
Sumter,  which  was  supposed  to  be  far  more  de 
fensible.  At  Charleston  his  action  was  interpreted 
as  preparation  for  war;  and  all  South  Carolinians 
saw  in  it  a  violation  of  a  pledge  which  they  believed 
the  President  had  given  their  congressmen,  three 
weeks  previous,  in  that  talk  which  had  not  been 
written  down.  Greatly  excited  and  fearful  of  de 
signs  against  them,  the  South  Carolina  commis 
sioners  held  two  conferences  with  the  President  on 
the  27th  and  28th  of  December.  They  believed 
that  he  had  broken  his  word,  and  they  told  him  so. 


88  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Deeply  agitated  and  refusing  to  admit  that  he  had 
committed  himself  at  the  earlier  conference,  he 
said  that  Anderson  had  acted  on  his  own  respon 
sibility,  but  he  refused  to  order  him  back  to  the 
now  ruined  Fort  Moultrie.  One  remark  which  he 
let  fall  has  been  remembered  as  evidence  of  his 
querulous  state  of  mind:  "You  are  pressing  me 
too  importunately, "  exclaimed  the  unhappy  Presi 
dent;  "you  don't  give  me  time  to  consider;  you 
don't  give  me  time  to  say  my  prayers;  I  always 
say  my  prayers  when  required  to  act  upon  any 
great  state  affair."  One  remembers  Hampden 
"seeking  the  Lord"  about  ship  money,  and  one 
realizes  that  the  same  act  may  have  a  vastly  dif 
ferent  significance  in  different  temperaments. 

Buchanan,  however,  was  virtually  ready  to  give 
way  to  the  demand  of  the  commissioners.  He 
drew  up  a  paper  to  that  effect  and  showed  it  to 
the  Cabinet.  Then  the  turning-point  came.  In 
a  painful  interview,  Black,  long  one  of  his  most 
trusted  friends,  told  him  of  his  intention  to  resign, 
and  that  Stanton  would  go  with  him  and  probably 
also  the  Postmaster-General,  Holt.  The  idea  of 
losing  the  support  of  these  strong  personalities 
terrified  Buchanan,  who  immediately  fell  into  a 
panic.  Handing  Black  the  paper  he  had  drawn 


SECESSION  89 

up,  Buchanan  begged  him  to  retain  office  and  to 
alter  the  paper  as  he  saw  fit.  To  this  Black  agreed. 
The  demand  for  the  surrender  of  the  forts  was 
refused;  Anderson  was  not  ordered  back  to  Moul- 
trie;  and  for  the  brief  remainder  of  Buchanan's 
administration  Black  acted  as  prime  minister. 

A  very  powerful  section  of  the  Northern  democ 
racy,  well  typified  by  their  leaders  at  Washington, 
had  thus  emerged  from  political  evasion  on  the 
Northern  side.  These  men,  known  afterwards  as 
War  Democrats,  combined  with  the  Republicans 
to  form  the  composite  Union  party  which  sup 
ported  Lincoln.  It  is  significant  that  Stan  ton 
eventually  reappeared  in  the  Cabinet  as  Lincoln's 
Secretary  of  War,  and  that  along  with  him  ap 
peared  another  War  Democrat,  Gideon  Welles, 
Lincoln's  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  With  them,  at 
last,  Douglas,  the  greatest  of  all  the  old  Demo 
crats  of  the  North,  took  his  position.  What  be 
came  of  the  other  factions  of  the  old  Democratic 
party  remains  to  be  told. 

While  Buchanan,  early  in  the  month,  was  weep 
ing  over  the  pitilessness  of  fate,  more  practical 
Northerners  were  grappling  with  the  question  of 
what  was  to  be  done  about  the  situation.  In  their 
thoughts  they  anticipated  a  later  statesman  and 


90  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

realized  that  they  were  confronted  by  a  condi 
tion  and  not  by  a  theory.  Secession  was  at  last 
a  reality.  Which  course  should  they  take? 

What  strikes  us  most  forcibly,  as  we  look  back 
upon  that  day,  is  the  widespread  desire  for  peace. 
The  abolitionists  form  a  conspicuous  example. 
Their  watchword  was  "Let  the  erring  sisters  go 
in  peace."  Wendell  Phillips,  their  most  gifted 
orator,  a  master  of  spoken  style  at  once  simple 
and  melodious,  declaimed  splendidly  against  war. 
Garrison,  in  The  Liberator,  followed  his  example. 
Whittier  put  the  same  feeling  into  his  verse : 

They  break  the  links  of  Union;  shall  we  light 
The  flames  of  hell  to  weld  anew  the  chain 
On  that  red  anvil  where  each  blow  is  pain? 

Horace  Greeley  said  in  an  editorial  in  the  New 
York  Tribune:  "If  the  cotton  states  shall  decide 
that  they  can  do  better  out  of  the  Union  than 
in  it,  we  shall  insist  on  letting  them  go  in  peace. 
.  .  .  Whenever  a  considerable  section  of  our 
Union  shall  deliberately  resolve  to  go  out,  we  shall 
resist  all  coercive  measures  designed  to  keep  them 
in.  We  hope  never  to  live  in  a  republic  where  one 
section  is  pinned  to  the  residue  by  bayonets. " 

The  Democrats  naturally  clung  to  their  tradi 
tions,  and,  even  when  they  went  over,  as  Black 


SECESSION  91 

and  Stanton  did,  to  the  Anti-Southern  group, 
they  still  hoped  that  war  would  not  be  the  result. 
Equally  earnest  against  war  were  most  of  the  Re 
publicans,  though  a  few,  to  be  sure,  were  ready 
to  swing  the  "Northern  hammer."  Sumner  pro 
phesied  that  slavery  would  "go  down  in  blood." 
But  the  bulk  of  the  Republicans  were  for  a  sec 
tional  compromise,  and  among  them  there  was 
general  approbation  of  a  scheme  which  contem 
plated  reviving  the  line  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  and  thus  frankly  admitting  the  existence  of 
two  distinct  sections,  and  guaranteeing  to  each 
the  security  of  its  own  institutions.  The  greatest 
Republican  boss  of  that  day,  Thurlow  Weed,  came 
out  in  defense  of  this  plan. 

No  power  was  arrayed  more  zealously  on  the  side 
of  peace  of  any  kind  than  the  power  of  money.  It 
was  estimated  that  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars 
were  owed  by  Southerners  to  Northerners.  War, 
it  was  reasoned,  would  cause  the  cancellation  of 
these  obligations.  To  save  their  Southern  ac 
counts,  the  moneyed  interests  of  the  North  joined 
the  extremists  of  Abolition  in  pleading  to  let  the 
erring  sisters  go  in  peace,  if  necessary,  rather 
than  provoke  them  to  war  and  the  confiscation  of 
debts.  It  was  the  dread  of  such  an  outcome  — 


92  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

which  finally  happened  and  ruined  many  North 
ern  firms  —  that  caused  the  stock-market  in  New 
York  to  go  up  and  down  with  feverish  uncer 
tainty.  Banks  suspended  payment  in  Washing 
ton,  Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia.  The  one  im 
portant  and  all-engrossing  thing  in  the  mind's 
eye  of  all  the  financial  world  at  this  moment 
was  that  specter  of  unpaid  Southern  accounts. 

At  this  juncture,  Senator  Crittenden  of  Ken 
tucky  submitted  to  the  Senate  a  plan  which  has 
been  known  ever  since  as  the  Crittenden  Com 
promise.  It  was  similar  to  Weed's  plan,  but  it  also 
provided  that  the  division  of  the  country  on  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line  should  be  established 
by  a  constitutional  amendment,  which  would  thus 
forever  solidify  sectionalism.  Those  elements  of 
the  population  generally  called  the  conservative 
and  the  responsible  were  delighted.  Edward  Eve 
rett  wrote  to  Crittenden,  "I  saw  with  great  sat 
isfaction  your  patriotic  movement,  and  I  wish 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  it  might  succeed"; 
and  August  Belmont  in  a  letter  to  Crittenden 
spoke  for  the  moneyed  interest:  "I  have  yet  to 
meet  the  first  Union-loving  man,  in  or  out  of 
politics,  who  does  not  approve  your  compromise 
proposition.  ..." 


SECESSION  93 

The  Senate  submitted  the  Compromise  to  a 
Committee  of  Thirteen.  In  this  committee  the 
Southern  leaders,  Toombs  and  Davis,  were  both 
willing  to  accept  the  Compromise,  if  a  majority  of 
the  Republican  members  would  agree.  Indeed, 
if  the  Republicans  would  agree  to  it,  there  seemed 
no  reason  why  a  new  understanding  between  the 
sections  might  not  be  reached,  and  no  reason  why 
sectionalism,  if  accepted  as  the  basis  of  the  govern 
ment,  might  not  solve  the  immediate  problem  and 
thus  avert  war.  In  this  crisis  all  eyes  were  turned 
to  Seward,  that  conspicuous  Republican  who  was 
generally  looked  upon  as  the  real  head  of  his  party. 
And  Seward,  at  that  very  moment,  was  debating 
whether  to  accept  Lincoln's  offer  of  the  Secretary 
ship  of  State,  for  he  considered  it  vital  to  have  an 
understanding  with  Lincoln  on  the  subject  of  the 
Compromise.  He  talked  the  matter  over  with 
Weed,  and  they  decided  that  Weed  should  go  to 
Springfield  and  come  to  terms  with  Lincoln.  It 
was  the  interview  between  Weed  and  Lincoln  — 
held,  it  seems,  on  the  very  day  on  which  the  Ordi 
nance  of  Secession  was  adopted  —  which  gave  to 
that  day  its  double  significance. 

Lincoln  refused  point-blank  to  accept  the  com 
promise  and  he  put  his  refusal  in  writing.  The 


94  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

historic  meaning  of  his  refusal,  and  the  signifi 
cance  of  his  determination  not  to  solve  the  problem 
of  the  hour  by  accepting  a  dual  system  of  govern 
ment  based  on  frankly  sectional  assumptions,  were 
probably,  in  a  measure,  lost  on  both  Weed  and 
Seward.  They  had,  however,  no  misunderstand 
ing  of  its  practical  effect.  This  crude  Western 
lawyer  had  certain  ideas  from  which  he  would  not 
budge,  and  the  party  would  have  to  go  along  with 
him.  Weed  and  Seward  therefore  promptly  fell 
into  line,  and  Seward  accepted  the  Secretaryship 
and  came  out  in  opposition  to  the  Compromise. 
Other  Republicans  with  whom  Lincoln  had  com 
municated  by  letter  made  known  his  views,  and 
Greeley  announced  them  in  The  Tribune.  The 
outcome  was  the  solid  alignment  of  all  the  Repub 
licans  in  Congress  against  the  Compromise.  As 
a  result,  this  last  attempt  to  reunite  the  sections 
came  to  nothing. 

Not  more  than  once  or  twice,  if  ever,  in  American 
history,  has  there  been  such  an  anxious  New  Year's 
Day  as  that  which  ushered  in  1861.  A  few  days 
before,  a  Republican  Congressman  had  written  to 
one  of  his  constituents:  "The  heavens  are  indeed 
black  and  an  awful  storm  is  gathering  ...  I  see 
no  way  that  either  North  or  South  can  escape  its 


SECESSION  95 

fury."  Events  were  indeed  moving  fast  toward 
disaster.  The  garrison  at  Sumter  was  in  need  of 
supplies,  and  in  the  first  week  of  the  new  year 
Buchanan  attempted  to  relieve  its  wants.  But 
a  merchant  vessel,  the  Star  of  the  West,  by  which 
supplies  were  sent,  was  fired  upon  by  the  South 
Carolina  authorities  as  it  approached  the  harbor 
and  was  compelled  to  turn  back.  This  incident 
caused  the  withdrawal  from  the  Cabinet  of  the  last 
opposition  members  —  Thompson,  of  Mississippi, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Thomas,  of 
Maryland,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  In  the 
course  of  the  month  five  Southern  States  followed 
South  Carolina  out  of  the  Union,  and  their  Sena 
tors  and  Representatives  resigned  from  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States. 

The  resignation  of  Jefferson  Davis  was  commu 
nicated  to  the  Senate  in  a  speech  of  farewell  which 
even  now  holds  the  imagination  of  the  student,  and 
which  to  the  men  of  that  day,  with  the  Union 
crumbling  around  them,  seemed  one  of  the  most 
mournful  and  dramatic  of  orations.  Davis  pos 
sessed  a  beautiful,  melodious  voice;  he  had  a  noble 
presence,  tall,  erect,  spare,  even  ascetic,  with  a 
flashing  blue  eye.  He  was  deeply  moved  by  the 
occasion;  his  address  was  a  requiem.  That  he 


96  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

withdrew  in  sorrow  but  with  fixed  determination, 
no  one  who  listened  to  him  could  doubt.  Early 
in  February,  the  Southern  Confederacy  was  formed 
with  Davis  as  its  provisional  President.  With  the 
prophetic  vision  of  a  logical  mind,  he  saw  that  war 
was  inevitable,  and  he  boldly  proclaimed  his  vision. 
In  various  speeches  on  his  way  South,  he  had  as 
sured  the  Southern  people  that  war  was  coming, 
and  that  it  would  be  long  and  bloody. 

The  withdrawal  of  these  Southern  members 
threw  the  control  of  the  House  into  the  hands  of 
the  Republicans.  Their  realization  of  their  power 
was  expressed  in  two  measures  which  also  passed 
the  Senate;  Kansas  was  admitted  as  a  State  with 
an  anti-slavery  constitution;  and  the  Morrill  tar 
iff,  which  they  had  failed  to  pass  the  previous 
spring,  now  became  law.  Thus  the  Republicans 
began  redeeming  their  pledges  to  the  anti-slavery 
men  on  the  one  hand  and  to  the  commercial  inter 
est  on  the  other.  The  time  had  now  arrived  for 
the  Republican  nominee  to  proceed  from  Spring 
field  to  Washington.  The  journey  was  circuitous 
in  order  to  enable  Lincoln  to  speak  at  a  number  of 
places.  Never  before,  probably,  had  the  Northern 
people  felt  such  tense  strain  as  at  that  moment; 
never  had  they  looked  to  an  incoming  President 


SECESSION  97 

with  such  anxious  doubt.  Would  he  prevent  war? 
Or,  if  he  could  not  do  that,  would  he  be  able 
to  extricate  the  country  —  Heaven  alone  knew 
how!  —  without  a  terrible  ordeal?  Since  his  elec 
tion,  Lincoln  had  remained  quietly  at  Springfield. 
Though  he  had  influenced  events  through  letters 
to  Congressmen,  his  one  conspicuous  action  during 
that  winter  was  the  defeat  of  the  Crittenden  Com 
promise.  The  Southern  President  had  called  upon 
his  people  to  put  their  house  in  order  as  preparation 
for  war.  What,  now,  had  Lincoln  to  say  to  the 
people  of  the  North? 

The  biographers  of  Lincoln  have  not  satisfac 
torily  revealed  the  state  of  his  mind  between  elec 
tion  and  inauguration.  We  may  safely  guess  that 
his  silence  covered  a  great  internal  struggle.  Ex 
cept  for  his  one  action  in  defeating  the  Compromise, 
he  had  allowed  events  to  drift;  but  by  that  one 
action  he  had  taken  upon  himself  the  responsibil 
ity  for  the  drift.  Though  the  country  at  that  time 
did  not  fully  appreciate  this  aspect  of  the  situa 
tion,  who  now  can  doubt  that  Lincoln  did?  His 
mind  was  always  a  lonely  one.  His  very  humor  has 
in  it,  so  often,  the  note  of  solitude,  of  one  who  is 
laughing  to  make  the  best  of  things,  of  one  who 
is  spiritually  alone.  During  those  months  when 


98  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

the  country  drifted  from  its  moorings,  and  when 
war  was  becoming  steadily  more  probable,  Lin 
coln,  after  the  manner  of  the  prophets,  wrestled 
alone  with  the  problems  which  he  saw  before  him. 
From  the  little  we  know  of  his  inward  state,  it  is 
hard  for  us  to  conclude  that  he  was  happy.  A 
story  which  is  told  by  his  former  partner,  Mr. 
Herndon,  seems  significant.  As  Lincoln  was  leav 
ing  his  unpretentious  law-office  for  the  last  time, 
he  turned  to  Mr.  Herndon  and  asked  him  not  to 
take  down  their  old  sign.  "Let  it  hang  there 
undisturbed,"  said  he.  "Give  our  clients  to  un 
derstand  that  the  election  of  a  President  makes 
no  difference  in  the  firm.  ...  If  I  live,  I'm 
coming  back  some  time,  and  then  we'll  go  right 
on  practising  law  as  if  nothing  had  happened. " 

How  far  removed  from  self-sufficiency  was  the 
man  whose  thoughts,  on  the  eve  of  his  elevation 
to  the  Presidency,  lingered  in  a  provincial  law 
office,  fondly  insistent  that  only  death  should  pre 
vent  his  returning  some  time  and  resuming  in 
those  homely  surroundings  the  life  he  had  led  pre 
vious  to  his  greatness.  In  a  mood  of  wistfulness 
and  of  intense  preoccupation,  he  began  his  journey 
to  Washington.  It  was  not  the  mood  from  which 
to  strike  fire  and  kindle  hope.  To  the  anxious, 


SECESSION  99 

listening  country  his  speeches  on  the  journey 
to  Washington  were  disappointing.  Perhaps  his 
strangely  sensitive  mind  felt  too  powerfully  the 
fatefulness  of  the  moment  and  reacted  with  a  sort 
of  lightness  that  did  not  really  represent  the  real 
man.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  was  never  less 
convincing  than  at  that  time.  Nor  were  people 
impressed  by  his  bearing.  Often  he  appeared 
awkward,  too  much  in  appearance  the  country 
lawyer.  He  acted  as  a  man  who  was  ill  at  ease  and 
he  spoke  as  a  man  who  had  nothing  to  say.  Gloom 
darkened  the  North  as  a  consequence  of  these  un 
fortunate  speeches,  for  they  expressed  an  opti 
mism  which  we  cannot  believe  he  really  felt,  and 
which  hurt  him  in  the  estimation  of  the  country. 
"  There  is  no  crisis  but  an  artificial  one, "  was  one  of 
his  ill-timed  assurances,  and  another,  "There  is 
nothing  going  wrong.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  that 
really  hurts  any  one."  Of  his  supporters  some 
were  discouraged;  others  were  exasperated;  and  an 
able  but  angry  partisan  even  went  so  far  as  to  write 
in  a  private  letter,  "Lincoln  is  a  Simple  Susan. " 

The  fourth  of  March  arrived,  and  with  it  the 
end  of  Lincoln's  blundering.  One  good  omen  for 
the  success  of  the  new  Administration  was  the 
presence  of  Douglas  on  the  inaugural  platform. 


100  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

He  had  accepted  fate,  deeply  as  it  wounded  him, 
and  had  come  out  of  the  shattered  party  of  eva 
sion  on  the  side  of  his  section.  For  the  purpose 
of  showing  his  support  of  the  administration  at 
this  critical  time,  he  had  taken  a  place  on  the 
stand  where  Lincoln  was  to  speak.  By  one  of 
those  curious  little  dramatic  touches  with  which 
chance  loves  to  embroider  history,  the  presence  of 
Douglas  became  a  gracious  detail  in  the  memory 
of  the  day.  Lincoln,  worn  and  awkward,  con 
tinued  to  hold  his  hat  in  his  hand.  Douglas, 
with  the  tact  born  of  social  experience,  stepped 
forward  and  took  it  from  him  without  exposing 
Lincoln's  embarrassment. 

The  inaugural  address  which  Lincoln  now  pro 
nounced  had  little  similarity  to  those  unfortunate 
utterances  which  he  had  made  on  the  journey 
to  Washington.  The  cloud  that  had  been  over 
him,  whatever  it  was,  had  lifted.  Lincoln  was 
ready  for  his  great  labor.  The  inaugural  con 
tained  three  main  propositions.  Lincoln  pledged 
himself  not  to  interfere  directly  or  indirectly 
with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  then  existed; 
he  promised  to  support  the  enforcement  of  the 
fugitive  slave  law;  and  he  declared  he  would 
maintain  the  Union.  "No  State,"  said  he,  "upon 


SECESSION  101 

its  own  mere  motion  can  lawfully  get  out  of  the 
Union ....  To  the  extent  of  my  ability  I  shall 
take  care,  as  the  Constitution  itself  expressly  en 
joins  upon  me,  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be 
faithfully  executed  in  all  the  States.  ...  In 
doing  this,  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence; 
and  there  shall  be  none,  unless  it  be  forced  upon 
the  national  authority.  The  power  confided  to 
me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  government." 
Addressing  the  Southerners,  he  said:  "In  your 
hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and 
not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war. 
The  Government  will  not  assail  you.  .  .  .  We 
are  not  enemies  but  friends.  .  .  .  The  mystic 
cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield 
and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearth 
stone,  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely 
they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. " 

Gentle  as  was  the  phrasing  of  the  inaugural,  it 
was  perfectly  firm,  and  it  outlined  a  policy  which 
the  South  would  not  accept,  and  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Southern  leaders,  brought  them  a 
step  nearer  war.  Wall  Street  held  the  same  belief, 
and  as  a  consequence  the  price  of  stocks  fell. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WAR 

/ 

ON  the  day  following  the  inauguration,  commis 
sioners  of  the  newly  formed  Confederacy  appeared 
at  Washington  and  applied  to  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  recognition  as  envoys  of  a  foreign  power. 
Seward  refused  them  such  recognition.  But  he 
entered  into  a  private  negotiation  with  them  which 
is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the  strangest  thing  in  our 
history.  Virtually,  Seward  intrigued  against  Lin 
coln  for  control  of  the  Administration.  The  events 
of  the  next  five  weeks  have  an  importance  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  brevity  of  the  time.  This 
was  Lincoln's  period  of  final  probation.  The  psy 
chological  intensity  of  this  episode  grew  from  the 
consciousness  in  every  mind  that  now,  irretriev 
ably,  destiny  was  to  be  determined.  War  or  peace, 
happiness  or  adversity,  one  nation  or  two  —  all 
these  were  in  the  balance.  Lincoln  entered  the 

episode  a  doubtful  quantity,  not  with  certainty 

102 


WAR  103 

the  master  even  in  his  own  Cabinet.  He  emerged 
dominating  the  situation,  but  committed  to  the 
terrible  course  of  war. 

One  cannot  enter  upon  this  great  episode,  truly 
the  turning-point  in  American  history,  without 
pausing  for  a  glance  at  the  character  of  Seward. 
The  subject  is  elusive.  His  ablest  biographer1 
plainly  is  so  constantly  on  guard  not  to  appear  an 
apologist  that  he  ends  by  reducing  his  portrait 
to  a  mere  outline,  wavering  across  a  background 
of  political  details.  The  most  recent  study  of 
Seward2  surely  reveals  between  the  lines  the  doubt 
fulness  of  the  author  about  pushing  his  points 
home.  The  different  sides  of  the  man  are  hard 
to  reconcile.  Now  he  seemed  frank  and  honest; 
again  subtle  and  insincere.  As  an  active  politician 
in  the  narrow  sense,  he  should  have  been  sagacious 
and  astute,  yet  he  displayed  at  the  crisis  of  his 
life  the  most  absolute  fatuity.  At  times  he  had  a 
buoyant  and  puerile  way  of  disregarding  fact  and 
enveloping  himself  in  a  world  of  his  own  imagining. 
He  could  bluster,  when  he  wished,  like  any  dema 
gogue;  and  yet  he  could  be  persuasive,  agreeable, 
and  even  personally  charming. 

1  Frederic  Bancroft,  Life  of  William  H.  Seward. 
3  Gamaliel  Bradford,  Union  Portraits. 


104  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

But  of  one  thing  with  regard  to  Seward,  in  the 
first  week  of  March,  1861,  there  can  be  no  doubt: 
he  thought  himself  a  great  statesman  —  and  he 
thought  Lincoln  "a  Simple  Susan. "  He  conceived 
his  r61e  in  the  new  administration  to  involve  a  sub 
tle  and  patient  manipulation  of  his  childlike  su 
perior.  That  Lincoln  would  gradually  yield  to  his 
spell  and  insensibly  become  his  figurehead;  that 
he,  Seward,  could  save  the  country  and  would  go 
down  to  history  a  statesman  above  compare,  he 
took  for  granted.  Nor  can  he  fairly  be  called  con 
ceited,  either;  that  is  part  of  his  singularity. 

Lincoln's  Cabinet  was,  as  Seward  said,  a  com 
pound  body.  With  a  view  to  strengthening  his 
position,  Lincoln  had  appointed  to  cabinet  posi 
tions  all  his  former  rivals  for  the  Republican  no 
mination.  Besides  Seward,  there  was  Chase  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  Simon  Cameron  of 
Pennsylvania  as  Secretary  of  War;  Edward  Bates 
of  Missouri  as  Attorney-General.  The  appoint 
ment  of  Montgomery  Blair  of  Maryland  as  Post 
master-General  was  intended  to  placate  the  border 
Slave  States.  The  same  motive  dictated  the  later 
inclusion  of  James  Speed  of  Kentucky  in  the  Cabi 
net.  The  Black-Stanton  wing  of  the  Democrats 
was  represented  in  the  Navy  Department  by 


WAR  105 

Gideon  Welles,  and  in  course  of  time  in  the  War 
Department  also,  when  Cameron  resigned  and 
Stanton  succeeded  him.  The  West  of  that  day 
was  represented  by  Caleb  B.  Smith  of  Indiana. 

Seward  disapproved  of  the  composition  of  the 
Cabinet  so  much  that,  almost  at  the  last  mo 
ment,  he  withdrew  his  acceptance  of  the  State 
Department.  It  was  Lincoln's  gentleness  of  ar 
gument  which  overcame  his  reluctance  to  serve. 
We  may  be  sure,  however,  that  Seward  failed  to 
observe  that  Lincoln's  tactlessness  in  social  mat 
ters  did  not  extend  to  his  management  of  men  in 
politics;  we  may  feel  sure  that  what  remained  in  his 
mind  was  Lincoln's  unwillingness  to  enter  office 
without  William  Henry  Seward  as  Secretary  of 
State. 

The  promptness  with  which  Seward  assumed  the 
role  of  prime  minister  bears  out  this  inference. 
The  same  fact  also  reveals  a  puzzling  detail  of 
Seward's  character  which  amounted  to  obtuseness 
—  his  forgetfulness  that  appointment  to  cabinet 
offices  had  not  transformed  his  old  political  rivals 
Chase  and  Cameron,  nor  softened  the  feelings  of  an 
inveterate  political  enemy,  Welles,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.  The  impression  which  Seward  made  on 
his  colleagues  in  the  first  days  of  the  new  Govern- 


106  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

ment  has  been  thus  sharply  recorded  by  Welles: 
"The  Secretary  of  State  was,  of  course,  apprised  of 
every  meeting  [of  ministers]  and  never  failed  in  his 
attendance,  whatever  was  the  subject-matter,  and 
though  entirely  out  of  his  official  province.  He  was 
vigilantly  attentive  to  every  measure  and  move 
ment  in  other  Departments,  however  trivial  —  as 
much  so  as  to  his  own  —  watched  and  scrutinized 
every  appointment  that  was  made,  or  proposed 
to  be  made,  but  was  not  communicative  in  re 
gard  to  the  transaction  of  the  State  Department." 
So  eager  was  Seward  to  keep  all  the  threads  of 
affairs  in  his  own  hands  that  he  tried  to  persuade 
Lincoln  not  to  hold  cabinet  meetings  but  merely 
to  consult  with  particular  ministers,  and  with  the 
Secretary  of  State,  as  occasion  might  demand. 
A  combined  protest  from  the  other  Secretaries, 
however,  caused  the  regular  holding  of  Cabinet 
meetings. 

With  regard  to  the  Confederacy,  Se ward's  pol 
icy  was  one  of  non-resistance.  For  this  he  had 
two  reasons.  The  first  of  these  was  his  rooted 
delusion  that  the  bulk  of  the  Southerners  were 
opposed  to  secession  and,  if  let  alone,  would  force 
their  leaders  to  reconsider  their  action.  He  might 
have  quoted  the  nursery  rhyme,  "Let  them  alone 


WAR  107 

and  they'll  come  home";  it  would  have  been  like 
him  and  in  tune  with  a  frivolous  side  of  his  nature. 
He  was  quite  as  irresponsible  when  he  compla 
cently  assured  the  North  that  the  trouble  would  all 
blow  over  within  ninety  days.  He  also  believed 
that  any  display  of  force  would  convert  these  hy 
pothetical  Unionists  of  the  South  from  friends  to 
enemies  and  would  consolidate  opinion  in  the  Con 
federacy  to  produce  war.  In  justice  to  Seward  it 
must  be  remembered  that  on  this  point  time  justi 
fied  his  fears. 

His  dealings  with  the  Confederate  commissioners 
show  that  he  was  playing  to  gain  time,  not  with 
intent  to  deceive  the  Southerners  but  to  acquire 
that  domination  over  Lincoln  which  he  felt  was  his 
by  natural  right.  Intending  to  institute  a  peace 
policy  the  moment  he  gained  this  ascendency,  he 
felt  perfectly  safe  in  making  promises  to  the  com 
missioners  through  mutual  friends.  He  virtually 
told  them  that  Sumter  would  eventually  be  given 
up  and  that  all  they  need  do  was  to  wait. 

Seward  brought  to  bear  upon  the  President  the 
opinions  of  various  military  men  who  thought  the 
time  had  passed  when  any  expedition  for  the  relief 
of  Sumter  could  succeed.  For  some  time  Lincoln 
seemed  about  to  consent,  though  reluctantly,  to 


108  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Se ward's  lead  in  the  matter  of  the  forts.  He 
was  pulled  up  standing,  however,  by  the  threat 
ened  resignation  of  the  Postmaster-General,  Blair. 
After  a  conference  with  leading  Republican  poli 
ticians  the  President  announced  to  his  Cabinet 
that  his  policy  would  include  the  relief  of  Sumter. 
"Seward,"  says  Welles,  "...  was  evidently 
displeased." 

Seward  now  took  a  new  tack:  Fort  Pickens, 
at  Pensacola,  was  a  problem  similar  to  that  of 
Sumter  at  Charleston.  Both  were  demanded  by  the 
Confederates,  and  both  were  in  need  of  supplies. 
But  Fort  Pickens  lay  to  one  side,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  public  mind,  and  there  was  not  conspicuously 
in  the  world's  eye  the  square  issue  over  it  that 
there  was  over  Sumter.  Seward  conceived  the 
idea  that,  if  the  President's  attention  were  diverted 
from  Sumter  to  Pickens  and  a  relief  expedition 
were  sent  to  the  latter  but  none  to  the  former, 
his  private  negotiations  with  the  Confederates 
might  still  be  kept  going;  Lincoln  might  yet  be 
hypnotized;  and  at  last  all  would  be  well. 

On  All-Fools'  Day,  1861,  in  the  midst  of  a  press 
of  business,  he  obtained  Lincoln's  signature  to 
some  dispatches,  which  Lincoln,  it  seems,  dis 
cussed  with  him  hurriedly  and  without  detailed 


WAR  109 

consideration.  There  were  now  in  preparation 
two  relief  expeditions,  one  to  carry  supplies  to 
Pensacola,  the  other  to  Charleston.  Neither  was 
to  fight  if  it  was  not  molested.  Both  were  to  be 
strong  enough  to  fight  if  their  commanders  deemed 
it  necessary.  As  flagship  of  the  Charleston  expe 
dition,  Welles  had  detailed  the  powerful  warship 
Powhatan,  which  was  rapidly  being  made  ready 
at  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard.  Such  was  the  situa 
tion  as  Welles  understood  it  when  he  was  thinking 
of  bed  late  on  the  night  of  the  6th  of  April.  Until 
then  he  had  not  suspected  that  there  was  doubt 
and  bewilderment  about  the  Powhatan  at  Brooklyn. 
One  of  those  dispatches  which  Lincoln  had  so 
hastily  signed  provided  for  detaching  the  Powhatan 
from  the  Charleston  expedition  and  sending  it  safe 
out  of  harm's  way  to  Pensacola.  The  commander 
of  the  ship  had  before  him  the  conflicting  orders, 
one  from  the  President,  one  from  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.  He  was  about  to  sail  under  the  Presi 
dent's  orders  for  Pensacola;  but  wishing  to  make 
sure  of  his  authority,  he  had  telegraphed  to  Wash 
ington.  Gideon  Welles  was  a  pugnacious  man. 
His  dislike  for  Seward  was  deep-seated.  Imagine 
his  state  of  mind  when  it  was  accidently  revealed 
to  him  that  Seward  had  gone  behind  his  back  and 


110  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

had  issued  to  naval  officers  orders  which  were 
contradictory  to  his  own!  The  immediate  result 
was  an  interview  that  same  night  between  Seward 
and  Welles  in  which,  as  Welles  coldly  admitted 
in  after  days,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  showed 
"some  excitement."  Together  they  went,  about 
midnight,  to  the  White  House.  Lincoln  had  some 
difficulty  recalling  the  incident  of  the  dispatch  on 
the  1st  of  April;  but  when  he  did  remember,  he 
took  the  responsibility  entirely  upon  himself,  say 
ing  he  had  had  no  purpose  but  to  strengthen  the 
Pickens  expedition,  and  no  thought  of  weakening 
the  expedition  to  Charleston.  He  directed  Seward 
to  telegraph  immediately  cancelling  the  order  de 
taching  the  Poivhatan.  Seward  made  a  desperate 
attempt  to  put  him  off,  protesting  it  was  too  late 
to  send  a  telegram  that  night.  "  But  the  President 
was  imperative,"  writes  Secretary  Welles,  in  de 
scribing  the  incident,  and  a  dispatch  was  sent. 

Seward  then,  doubtless  in  his  agitation,  did  a 
strange  thing.  Instead  of  telegraphing  in  the 
President's  name,  the  dispatch  which  he  sent  read 
merely,  "Give  up  the  Powhatan  .  .  .  Seward." 
When  this  dispatch  was  received  at  Brooklyn,  the 
Powhatan  was  already  under  way  and  had  to  be 
overtaken  by  a  fast  tug.  In  the  eyes  of  her  com- 


WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD 

Photograph  by  Brady.     In  the  collection  of  L.  C.  Handy,  Wash 
ington. 


110       .    LINCOLN  AND  THE  1  ? 

had   issued  to  naval  officers  orders  were 

contradictory  to  his  own!     The  imu 
was  an  interview  that  same  night  -bet*  >.       S=.ward 
and  Welles  in  which,  as  Welles  coldly 
in  after  days,  the  Secretary  of.  the  Navy 
"some  excitement.*'     Together  they  went,  about 
midnight,  to  the  White  House.    Lincoln  had  some 
difficulty  recalling  the  incident  of  the  dispatch  on 
the  1st  of  April;  but  when  1u-  did  remember,  he 
e*I>uiiW^TOaf*W^«j»a 


Pickens  expedition,  ariono  thought  of  weakening 
the  expedition  to  Charleston.  He  directed  Seward 
to  telegraph  immediately  cancelling  the  order  de 
taching  the  Powhatan.  Seward  made  a  desperate 
attempt  to  put  him  off,  protesting  it  wa>s  too  lute 
to  send  a  telegram  that  night. 
was  imperative,"  writes  Secretary  Welles,  in  de 
scribing  the  incident,  and  a  dispatch  was  sent. 

Seward  then,  doubtless  in  his  agitation  did  a 
strange  thing.  Instead  of  telegraphing  in  the 
President's  name,  the  dispatch  which  he  sent  read 
merely,  "Give  up  the  Pxi'i*alan  .  Seward." 

When  this  dispatch  was  received  at  Brooklyn,  the 
P&tehafan  was  already  under  vny  and  had  to  be 


WAR  111 

mander,  however,  a  personal  telegram  from  the 
Secretary  of  State  appeared  as  of  no  weight  against 
the  official  orders  of  the  President,  and  he  con 
tinued  his  voyage  to  Pensacola. 

The  mercurial  temper  of  Seward  comes  out 
even  in  the  caustic  narrative  written  afterwards 
by  Welles.  Evidently  Seward  was  deeply  morti 
fied  and  depressed  by  the  incident.  He  remarked, 
says  Welles,  that  old  as  he  was  he  had  learned 
a  lesson,  and  that  was  that  he  had  better  attend 
to  his  own  business.  "To  this,"  commented  his 
enemy,  "I  cordially  assented." 

Nevertheless  Seward's  loss  of  faith  in  himself  was 
only  momentary.  A  night's  sleep  was  sufficient  to 
restore  it.  His  next  communication  to  the  com 
missioners  shows  that  he  was  himself  again,  sure 
that  destiny  owed  him  the  control  of  the  situation. 
On  the  following  day  the  commissioners  had  got 
wind  of  the  relief  expedition  and  pressed  him  for 
information,  recalling  his  assurance  that  nothing 
would  be  done  to  their  disadvantage.  In  reply, 
still  through  a  third  person,  Seward  sent  them  the 
famous  message,  over  the  precise  meaning  of  which 
great  debate  has  raged:  "Faith  as  to  Sumter  fully 
kept;  wait  and  see."  If  this  infatuated  dreamer 
still  believed  he  could  dominate  Lincoln,  still 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

hoped  at  the  last  moment  to  arrest  the  expedition 
to  Charleston,  he  was  doomed  to  bitterest  disap 
pointment. 

On  the  9th  of  April,  the  expedition  to  Fort  Sum- 
ter  sailed,  but  without,  as  we  have  seen,  the  assist 
ance  of  the  much-needed  warship,  the  Powhatan. 
As  all  the  world  knows,  the  expedition  had  been 
too  long  delayed  and  it  accomplished  nothing.  Be 
fore  it  arrived,  the  surrender  of  Sumter  had  been 
demanded  and  refused — and  war  had  begun .  D  ur- 
ing  the  bombardment  of  Sumter,  the  relief  expedi 
tion  appeared  beyond  the  bar,  but  its  commander 
had  no  vessels  of  such  a  character  as  to  enable  him 
to  carry  aid  to  the  fortress.  Furthermore,  he  had 
not  been  informed  that  the  Powhatan  had  been 
detached  from  his  squadron,  and  he  expected  to 
meet  her  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbor.  There  his 
ships  lay  idle  until  the  fort  was  surrendered,  wait 
ing  for  the  Powhatan — for  whose  detachment  from 
the  squadron  Seward  was  responsible. 

To  return  to  the  world  of  intrigue  at  Washington, 
however,  it  must  not  be  supposed,  as  is  so  often 
done,  that  Fort  Sumter  was  the  one  concern  of  the 
new  government  during  its  first  six  weeks.  In 
fact,  the  subject  occupied  but  a  fraction  of  Lin 
coln's  time.  Scarcely  second  in  importance  was 


WAR  113 

that  matter  so  curiously  bound  up  with  the  relief 
of  the  forts — the  getting  in  hand  of  the  strangely 
vainglorious  Secretary  of  State.  Mention  has 
already  been  made  of  All-Fools'  Day,  1861. 
Several  marvelous  things  took  place  on  that  day. 
Strangest  of  all  was  the  presentation  of  a  paper  by 
the  Secretary  of  State  to  his  chief,  entitled  Thoughts 
for  the  President's  Consideration.  Whether  it  be  re 
garded  as  a  state  paper  or  as  a  biographical  detail 
in  the  career  of  Seward,  it  proves  to  be  quite  the 
most  astounding  thing  in  the  whole  episode.  The 
Thoughts  outlined  a  course  of  policy  by  which  the 
buoyant  Secretary  intended  to  make  good  his 
prophecy  of  domestic  peace  within  ninety  days. 
Besides  calmly  patronizing  Lincoln,  assuring  him 
that  his  lack  of  "a  policy  either  domestic  or 
foreign"  was  "not  culpable  and  .  .  .  even  un 
avoidable,"  the  paper  warned  him  that  "policies 
.  .  .  both  domestic  and  foreign"  must  immedi 
ately  be  adopted,  and  it  proceeded  to  point  out 
what  they  ought  to  be.  Briefly  stated,  the  one 
true  policy  which  he  advocated  at  home  was  to 
evacuate  Sumter  (though  Pickens  for  some  un 
explained  reason  might  be  safely  retained)  and 
then,  in  order  to  bring  the  Southerners  back  into 
the  Union,  to  pick  quarrels  with  both  Spain  and 


114  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

France;  to  proceed  as  quickly  as  possible  to  war 
with  both  powers;  and  to  have  the  ultimate  sat 
isfaction  of  beholding  the  reunion  of  the  country 
through  the  general  enthusiasm  that  was  bound 
to  come.  Finally,  the  paper  intimated  that  the 
Secretary  of  State  was  the  man  to  carry  this  pro 
ject  through  to  success. 

All  this  is  not  opera  bouffe,  but  serious  history. 
It  must  have  taxed  Lincoln's  sense  of  humor  and 
strained  his  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  to  treat 
such  nonsense  with  the  tactful  forbearance  which 
he  showed  and  to  relegate  it  to  the  pigeonhole  with 
out  making  Seward  angry.  Yet  this  he  contrived 
to  do;  and  he  also  managed,  gently  but  firmly, 
to  make  it  plain  that  the  President  intended  to 
exercise  his  authority  as  the  chief  magistrate  of 
the  nation.  His  forbearance  was  further  shown  in 
passing  over  without  rebuke  Seward's  part  in  the 
affair  of  Sumter,  which  might  so  easily  have  been 
made  to  appear  treacherous,  and  in  shouldering 
himself  with  all  responsibility  for  the  failure  of 
the  Charleston  expedition.  In  the  wave  of  excite 
ment  following  the  surrender,  even  so  debonair  a 
minister  as  Seward  must  have  realized  how  for 
tunate  it  was  for  him  that  his  chief  did  not  tell  all 
he  knew.  About  this  time  Seward  began  to  per- 


WAR  115 

ceive  that  Lincoln  had  a  will  of  his  own,  and  that 
it  was  not  safe  to  trifle  further  with  the  President. 
Seward  thereupon  ceased  his  interference. 

It  was  in  the  dark  days  preceding  the  fall  of 
Sumter  that  a  crowd  of  office-seekers  gathered  at 
Washington,  most  of  them  men  who  had  little 
interest  in  anything  but  the  spoils.  It  is  a  dis 
tressing  commentary  on  the  American  party  sys 
tem  that,  during  the  most  critical  month  of  the 
most  critical  period  of  American  history,  much  of 
the  President's  time  was  consumed  by  these  po 
litical  vampires  who  would  not  be  put  off,  even 
though  a  revolution  was  in  progress  and  nations, 
perhaps,  were  dying  and  being  born.  "The 
scramble  for  office,"  wrote  Stanton,  "is  terrible." 
Seward  noted  privately:  "Solicitants  for  office 
besiege  the  President.  .  .  .  My  duties  call  me 
to  the  White  House  two  or  three  times  a  day. 
The  grounds,  halls,  stairways,  closets,  are  filled 
with  applicants  who  render  ingress  and  egress 
difficult." 

Secretary  Welles  has  etched  the  Washington  of 
that  time  in  his  coldly  scornful  way: 

A  strange  state  of  things  existed  at  that  time  in 
Washington.  The  atmosphere  was  thick  with  treason. 
Party  spirit  and  old  party  differences  prevailed,  how- 


116  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

ever,  amidst  these  accumulated  dangers.  Secession  was 
considered  by  most  persons  as  a  political  party  ques 
tion,  not  as  rebellion.  Democrats  to  a  large  extent 
sympathized  with  the  Rebels  more  than  with  the  Ad 
ministration,  which  they  opposed,  not  that  they  wished 
Secession  to  be  successful  and  the  Union  divided,  but 
they  hoped  that  President  Lincoln  and  the  Republicans 
would,  overwhelmed  by  obstacles  and  embarrassments, 
prove  failures.  The  Republicans  on  the  other  hand, 
were  scarcely  less  partisan  and  unreasonable.  Patri 
otism  was  with  them  no  test,  no  shield  from  party 
malevolence.  They  demanded  the  proscription  and 
exclusion  of  such  Democrats  as  opposed  the  Rebel 
movement  and  clung  to  the  Union,  with  the  same  vehe 
mence  that  they  demanded  the  removal  of  the  worst 
Rebels  who  advocated  a  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Neither  party  appeared  to  be  apprehensive  of,  or  to 
realize  the  gathering  storm. 

Seen  against  such  a  background,  the  political 
and  diplomatic  frivolity  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
is  not  so  inexplicable  as  it  would  otherwise  be. 
This  background,  as  well  as  the  intrigue  of  the 
Secretary,  helps  us  to  understand  Lincoln's  great 
task  inside  his  Cabinet.  At  first  the  Cabinet  was 
a  group  of  jealous  politicians  new  to  this  sort  of 
office,  drawn  from  different  parties,  and  totally 
lacking  in  a  cordial  sense  of  previous  action  to 
gether.  None  of  them,  probably,  when  they  first 
assembled  had  any  high  opinion  of  their  titular 


WAR  117 

head.  He  was  looked  upon  as  a  political  makeshift. 
The  best  of  them  had  to  learn  to  appreciate  the  fact 
that  this  strange,  ungainly  man,  sprung  from  plain 
est  origin,  without  formal  education,  was  a  great 
genius.  By  degrees,  however,  the  large  minds  in  the 
Cabinet  became  his  cordial  admirers.  While  Lin 
coln  was  quietly,  gradually  exercising  his  strong 
will  upon  Seward,  he  was  doing  the  same  with 
the  other  members  of  his  council.  Presently  they 
awoke  —  the  majority  of  them  at  least  —  to  the 
truth  that  he,  for  all  his  odd  ways,  was  their 
master. 

Meanwhile  the  gradual  readjustment  of  all  fac 
tions  in  the  North  was  steadily  going  forward. 
The  Republicans  were  falling  into  line  behind  the 
Government;  and  by  degrees  the  distinction  be 
tween  Seward  and  Lincoln,  in  the  popular  mind, 
faded  into  a  sort  of  composite  picture  called  "the 
Administration. "  Lincoln  had  the  reward  of  his 
long  forbearance  with  his  Secretary.  For  Seward 
it  must  be  said  that,  however  he  had  intrigued 
against  his  chief  at  Washington,  he  did  not  intrigue 
with  the  country.  Admitting  as  he  had,  too,  that 
he  had  met  his  master,  he  took  the  defeat  as  a  good 
sportsman  and  threw  all  his  vast  party  influence 
into  the  scale  for  Lincoln's  fortunes.  Thus,  as 


118  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

April  wore  on,  the  Republican  party  settled  down 
to  the  idea  that  it  was  to  follow  the  Government  at 
Washington  upon  any  course  that  might  develop. 

The  Democrats  in  the  North  were  anti-Southern 
in  larger  proportion,  probably,  than  at  any  other 
time  during  the  struggle  of  the  sections.  We  have 
seen  that  numbers  of  them  had  frankly  declared 
for  the  Union.  Politics  had  proved  weaker  than 
propinquity.  There  was  a  moment  when  it  seemed 
—  delusively,  as  events  proved  —  that  the  North 
was  united  as  one  man  to  oppose  the  South. 

There  is  surely  not  another  day  in  our  history 
that  has  witnessed  so  much  nervous  tension  as 
Saturday,  April  13,  1861,  for  on  that  morning  the 
newspapers  electrified  the  North  with  the  news 
that  Sumter  had  been  fired  on  from  Confederate 
batteries  on  the  shore  of  Charleston  Harbor.  In 
the  South  the  issue  was  awaited  confidently,  but 
many  minds  at  least  were  in  that  state  of  awed 
suspense  natural  to  a  moment  which  the  thought 
ful  see  is  the  stroke  of  fate.  In  the  North,  the 
day  passed  for  the  most  part  in  a  quiet  so  breath 
less  that  even  the  most  careless  could  have  fore 
told  the  storm  which  broke  on  the  following 
day.  The  account  of  this  crisis  which  has  been 
given  by  Lincoln's  private  secretary  is  interesting: 


WAR  119 

"That  day  there  was  little  change  in  the  busi 
ness  routine  of  the  Executive  office.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  never  liable  to  sudden  excitement  or  sudden 
activity.  ...  So  while  the  Sumter  telegrams 
were  on  every  tongue  .  .  .  leading  men  and  offi 
cials  called  to  learn  or  impart  the  news.  The  Cabi 
net,  as  by  common  impulse,  came  together  and 
deliberated.  All  talk,  however,  was  brief,  senten 
tious,  formal.  Lincoln  said  but  little  beyond  mak 
ing  inquiries  about  the  current  reports  and  criti 
cizing  the  probability  or  accuracy  of  their  details, 
and  went  on  as  usual  receiving  visitors,  listening 
to  suggestions,  and  signing  routine  papers  through 
out  the  day. "  Meanwhile  the  cannon  were  boom 
ing  at  Charleston.  The  people  came  out  on  the 
sea-front  of  the  lovely  old  city  and  watched  the 
duel  of  the  cannon  far  down  the  harbor,  and  spoke 
joyously  of  the  great  event.  They  saw  the  shells 
of  the  shore  batteries  ignite  portions  of  the  fort 
ress  on  the  island.  They  watched  the  fire  of  the 
defenders  —  driven  by  the  flames  into  a  restrict 
ed  area  —  slacken  and  cease.  At  last  the  flag 
of  the  Union  fluttered  down  from  above  Fort 
Sumter. 

When  the  news  flashed  over  the  North,  early 
Sunday   morning,  April  14th,  the  tension  broke. 


120  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

For  many  observers  then  and  afterward,  the  only 
North  discernible  that  fateful  Sabbath  was  an 
enraged,  defiant,  impulsive  nation,  forgetful  for 
the  moment  of  all  its  differences,  and  uniting  all 
its  voices  in  one  hoarse  cry  for  vengeance.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  other  thought.  Lincoln  gave  it 
formal  utterance,  that  same  day,  by  assembling 
his  Cabinet  and  drawing  up  a  proclamation  which 
called  for  75,000  volunteer  troops. 

An  incident  of  this  day  which  is  as  significant 
historically  as  any  other  was  on  the  surface  no  more 
than  a  friendly  talk  between  two  men.  Douglas 
called  at  the  White  House.  For  nearly  two  hours 
he  and  Lincoln  conferred  in  private.  Hitherto  it 
had  been  a  little  uncertain  what  course  Douglas 
was  going  to  take.  In  the  Senate,  though  con 
demning  disunion,  he  had  opposed  war.  Few 
matters  can  have  troubled  Lincoln  more  deeply 
than  the  question  which  way  Douglas's  immense 
influence  would  be  thrown.  The  question  was 
answered  publicly  in  the  newspapers  of  Monday, 
April  15th.  Douglas  announced  that  while  he  was 
still  "unalterably  opposed  to  the  Administration 
on  all  its  political  issues,  he  was  prepared  to  sus 
tain  the  President  in  the  exercise  of  all  his  con 
stitutional  functions  to  preserve  the  Union,  and 


WAR  121 

maintain  the  Government,  and  defend  the  federal 
capital. " 

There  remained  of  Douglas's  life  but  a  few 
months.  The  time  was  filled  with  earnest  speech - 
making  in  support  of  the  Government.  He  had 
started  West  directly  following  his  conference  with 
Lincoln.  His  speeches  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
were  perhaps  the  greatest  single  force  in  breaking 
up  his  own  following,  putting  an  end  to  the  prin 
ciple  of  doing  nothing,  and  forcing  every  Democrat 
to  come  out  and  show  his  colors.  In  Shakespeare's 
phrase,  it  was — "Under  which  king,  Bezonian? 
speak  or  die!"  In  Douglas's  own  phrase:  "There 
can  be  no  neutrals  in  this  war;  only  patriots  —  or 
traitors. " 

Side  by  side  with  Douglas's  manifesto  to  the 
Democrats  there  appeared  in  the  Monday  papers 
Lincoln's  call  for  volunteers.  The  militia  of  sev 
eral  Northern  States  at  once  responded. 

On  Wednesday,  the  17th  of  April,  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  Regiment  entrained  for  Washing 
ton.  Two  days  later  it  was  in  Baltimore.  There 
it  was  attacked  by  a  mob;  the  soldiers  fired;  and 
a  number  of  civilians  were  killed  as  well  as  sev 
eral  soldiers. 

These  shots  at  Baltimore  aroused  the  Southern 


122  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

party  in  Maryland.  Led  by  the  Mayor  of  the  city, 
they  resolved  to  prevent  the  passage  of  other  troops 
across  their  State  to  Washington.  Railway  tracks 
were  torn  up  by  order  of  the  municipal  authorities, 
and  bridges  were  burnt.  The  telegraph  was  cut. 
As  in  a  flash,  after  issuing  his  proclamation,  Lin 
coln  found  himself  isolated  at  Washington  with 
no  force  but  a  handful  of  troops  and  the  govern 
ment  clerks.  And  while  Maryland  rose  against 
him  on  one  side,  Virginia  joined  his  enemies  on 
the  other.  The  day  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  left 
Boston,  Virginia  seceded.  The  Virginia  militia 
were  called  to  their  colors.  Preparations  were  at 
once  set  on  foot  for  the  seizure  of  the  great  federal 
arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry  and  the  Navy  Yard 
at  Norfolk.  The  next  day  a  handful  of  federal 
troops,  fearful  of  being  overpowered  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  burned  the  arsenal  and  withdrew  to  Wash 
ington.  For  the  same  reason  the  buildings  of  the 
great  Navy  Yard  were  blown  up  or  set  on  fire,  and 
the  ships  at  anchor  were  sunk.  So  desperate  and 
unprepared  were  the  Washington  authorities  that 
they  took  these  extreme  measures  to  keep  arms 
and  ammunition  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Virgin 
ians.  So  hastily  was  the  destruction  carried  out, 
that  it  was  only  partially  successful  and  at  both 


WAR  123 

places  large  stores  of  ammunition  were  seized  by 
the  Virginia  troops.  While  Washington  was  iso 
lated,  and  Lincoln  did  not  know  what  response  the 
North  had  made  to  his  proclamation,  Robert  E. 
Lee,  having  resigned  his  commission  in  the  federal 
army,  was  placed  in  command  of  the  Virginia 
troops. 

The  secretaries  of  Lincoln  have  preserved  a  pic 
ture  of  his  desperate  anxiety,  waiting,  day  after 
day,  for  relief  from  the  North  which  he  hoped 
would  speedily  come  by  sea.  Outwardly  he  main 
tained  his  self-control.  "But  once,  on  the  after 
noon  of  the  23d,  the  business  of  the  day  being 
over,  the  Executive  office  being  deserted,  after 
walking  the  floor  alone  in  silent  thought  for  nearly 
half  an  hour,  he  stopped  and  gazed  long  and  wist 
fully  out  of  the  window  down  the  Potomac  in  the 
direction  of  the  expected  ships;  and,  unconscious 
of  other  presence  in  the  room,  at  length  broke  out 
with  irrepressible  anguish  in  the  repeated  exclama 
tion,  'Why  don't  they  come!  Why  don't  they 
come!'" 

During  these  days  of  isolation,  when  Washing 
ton,  with  the  telegraph  inoperative,  was  kept  in 
an  appalling  uncertainty,  the  North  rose.  There 
was  literally  a  rush  to  volunteer.  "The  heather 


124  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

is  on  fire,*'  wrote  George  Ticknor,  "I  never  be 
fore  knew  what  a  popular  excitement  can  be."  As 
fast  as  possible  militia  were  hurried  South.  The 
crack  New  York  regiment,  the  famous,  dandified 
Seventh,  started  for  the  front  amid  probably  the 
most  tempestuous  ovation  which  until  that  time 
was  ever  given  to  a  military  organization  in  Amer 
ica.  Of  the  march  of  the  regiment  down  Broad 
way,  one  of  its  members  wrote,  "Only  one  who 
passed  as  we  did,  through  the  tempest  of  cheers 
two  miles  long,  can  know  the  terrible  enthusiasm 
of  the  occasion. " 

To  reach  Washington  by  rail  was  impossible. 
The  Seventh  went  by  boat  to  Annapolis.  The 
same  course  was  taken  by  a  regiment  of  Massa 
chusetts  mechanics,  the  Eighth.  Landing  at  An 
napolis,  the  two  regiments,  dandies  and  labor 
ers,  fraternized  at  once  in  the  common  bond  of 
loyalty  to  the  Union.  A  branch  railway  led 
from  Annapolis  to  the  main  line  between  Wash 
ington  and  Baltimore.  The  rails  had  been  torn 
up.  The  Massachusetts  mechanics  set  to  work  to 
relay  them.  The  Governor  of  Maryland  protested. 
He  was  disregarded.  The  two  regiments  toiled  to 
gether  a  long  day  and  through  the  night  follow 
ing,  between  Annapolis  and  the  Washington  June- 


WAR  125 

tion,  bringing  on  their  baggage  and  cannon  over 
relaid  tracks.  There,  a  train  was  found  which  the 
Seventh  appropriated.  At  noon,  on  the  25th  of 
April,  that  advance  guard  of  the  Northern  hosts 
entered  Washington,  and  Lincoln  knew  that  he 
had  armies  behind  him. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LINCOLN 

THE  history  of  the  North  had  virtually  become, 
by  April,  1861,  the  history  of  Lincoln  himself,  and 
during  the  remaining  four  years  of  the  President's 
life  it  is  difficult  to  separate  his  personality  from 
the  trend  of  national  history.  Any  attempt  to 
understand  the  achievements  and  the  omissions  of 
the  Northern  people  without  undertaking  an  intel 
ligent  estimate  of  their  leader  would  be  only  to 
duplicate  the  story  of  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out. 
According  to  the  opinion  of  English  military  ex 
perts,1  "Against  the  great  military  genius  of  cer 
tain  Southern  leaders  fate  opposed  the  unbroken 
resolution  and  passionate  devotion  to  the  Union, 
which  he  worshiped,  of  the  great  Northern  Presi 
dent.  As  long  as  he  lived  and  ruled  the  people  of 
the  North,  there  could  be  no  turning  back. " 

1  Wood  and  Edmonds,  The  Civil  War  in  the  United  States. 
126 


LINCOLN  127 

Lincoln  has  been  ranked  with  Socrates;  but  he 
has  also  been  compared  with  Rabelais.  He  has 
been  the  target  of  abuse  that  knew  no  mercy;  but 
he  has  been  worshiped  as  a  demigod.  The  ten  big 
volumes  of  his  official  biography  are  a  sustained, 
intemperate  eulogy  in  which  the  hero  does  no 
thing  that  is  not  admirable;  but  as  large  a  book 
could  be  built  up  out  of  contemporaneous  North 
ern  writings  that  would  paint  a  picture  of  unmiti 
gated  blackness — and  the  most  eloquent  portions 
of  it  would  be  signed  by  Wendell  Phillips. 

The  real  Lincoln  is,  of  course,  neither  the  Lin 
coln  of  the  official  biography  nor  the  Lincoln  of 
Wendell  Phillips.  He  was  neither  a  saint  nor  a 
villain.  What  he  actually  was  is  not,  however,  so 
easily  stated.  Prodigious  men  are  never  easy  to 
sum  up;  and  Lincoln  was  a  prodigious  man.  The 
more  one  studies  him,  the  more  individual  he 
appears  to  be.  By  degrees  one  comes  to  under 
stand  how  it  was  possible  for  contemporaries  to 
hold  contradictory  views  of  him  and  for  each  to 
believe  frantically  that  his  views  were  proved  by 
facts.  For  anyone  who  thinks  he  can  hit  off  in  a 
few  neat  generalities  this  complex,  extraordinary 
personality,  a  single  warning  may  suffice.  Walt 
Whitman,  who  was  perhaps  the  most  original 


128  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

thinker  and  the  most  acute  observer  who  ever  saw 
Lincoln  face  to  face  has  left  us  his  impression;  but 
he  adds  that  there  was  something  in  Lincoln's  face 
which  defied  description  and  which  no  picture  had 
caught.  After  Whitman's  conclusion  that  "One 
of  the  great  portrait  painters  of  two  or  three  hun 
dred  years  ago  is  needed,"  the  mere  historian 
should  proceed  with  caution. 

There  is  historic  significance  in  his  very  appear 
ance.  His  huge,  loose-knit  figure,  six  feet  four 
inches  high,  lean,  muscular,  ungainly,  the  evi 
dence  of  his  great  physical  strength,  was  a  fit  sym 
bol  of  those  hard  workers,  the  children  of  the  soil, 
from  whom  he  sprang.  His  face  was  rugged  like 
his  figure,  the  complexion  swarthy,  cheek  bones 
high,  and  bushy  black  hair  crowning  a  great  fore 
head  beneath  which  the  eyes  were  deep-set,  gray, 
and  dreaming.  A  sort  of  shambling  powerfulness 
formed  the  main  suggestion  of  face  and  figure, 
softened  strangely  by  the  mysterious  expression  of 
the  eyes,  and  by  the  singular  delicacy  of  the  skin. 
The  motions  of  this  awkward  giant  lacked  grace; 
the  top  hat  and  black  frock  coat,  sometimes  rusty, 
which  had  served  him  on  the  western  circuit  con 
tinued  to  serve  him  when  he  was  virtually  the  dic 
tator  of  his  country.  It  was  in  such  dress  that 


GROUP    OF    FURNITURE    FROM    LINCOLN'S    HOUSE  IN 
SPRINGFIELD 

In  the  collection  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  Phila 
delphia.  "The  sofa,  work  table,  and  chairs  were  formerly  in  the 
possession  of  Messrs.  Vanuxera  and  Potter,  lawyers,  of  Philadelphia. 
The  sofa,  which  is  of  mahogany  veneer,  upholstered  with  hair  cloth, 
was  made  to  order  for  Lincoln,  he  being  unable  to  find  one  ready  made 
which  was  long  enough  for  him.  When  Lincoln  left  Springfield, 
Illinois,  for  Washington,  much  of  the  furniture  of  his  house  was  sold. 
This  sofa  was  bought  for  $100  by  Mr.  John  E.  Roll,  who  sold  it  to  the 
Lincoln  Memorial  Collection  of  Chicago."  —  Life  of  Lincoln,  by 
Ida  M.  Tarbell. 


128  LINCOLN  AND  THE  1"\!<1N 

thinker  and  the  most  acute  ohserv«  bo  ever  saw 
Lincoln  face  to  face  has  left  u*  his  h  ^*sion;  but 
he  adds  that  there  was  something  in  -  ^>t*Ts  face 
which  defied  description  and  which  nr- 

of  the  great  portrait  painters  of  two  or  *    **e  hi:  : 
dred  years  ago  is  needed,"  the  mere    T.afcorian 
should  proceed  with  caution. 

There  is  historic  significance  in  his  very  appear 
ance.  Hi*  huge,  loose-knit  figure,  six  fert  fou, 
inches  high,  lean,  muscular,  ungainly,  th<  evi- 

%\'aatSOH':a*VL\OOVKA    UWVl    aft^TlttftOT    m^Y-JlvA'.* 

f&«^\$S£n< 

•Illume  hacd  workers,  thjfe  children  of  the  soil, 

-nfirf'I  .BHiB'/Iv-niT/I  lo  vJ->i->oR  Iij.ono.KiII  sift  lo  noiJooHoo  orfJ  nl 

•nil    |,i    vKnr:-  IQI    PpJKi       |W    Jfig    IBM    -nu-,    -,,:':"       ,RiH(,Iob 


lo  ^IS^WB!  «i.9ilocl.  bnB  maxti 

,.        ,   . 

rf1  n  bo 


IY/      .rnirf  10}  d^uoao  gaol  BBW  il)iii 
iil  o,I)  '1o  ifoum  fno^niif«B7/  10!  ,?.ionllfl 
.3  ndol  .il/:  v.d  OUI$:toVArfsiiod  «BY/  Blrt«  ^ifiT 
vJ   t$\\oojuw\  \o  aVsi  —  r  "  .o2BoiiI3  lo  noiJofjUo')  huiomdM  nlooniJ 

.IffxlujT    I/:  «hl 

softened  strangely  by  the  myster^  .u*  ?9cpre 
the  eyes,  and  by  the  singular  d  ^y  of  e  ^kin. 
The  motions  of  this  awkward  ,  ii«t  lacked  grace; 
the  top  hat  and  black  frock  c  ^U  somet  imes  rusty, 
which  had  served  him  on  tl  western  circuit  con 
tinued  to  serve  him  whenh'  iwus  \irtually  the  dic 
tator  of  hi*  country.  It  '*ms  in  such  dress  that 


LINCOLN  129 

he  visited  the  army,  where  he  towered  above  his 
generals. 

Even  in  a  book  of  restricted  scope,  such  as  this, 
one  must  insist  upon  the  distinction  between  the 
private  and  public  Lincoln,  for  there  is  as  yet  no 
accepted  conception  of  him.  What  comes  nearest 
to  an  accepted  conception  is  contained  probably 
in  the  version  of  the  late  Charles  Francis  Adams. 
He  tells  us  how  his  father,  the  elder  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  ambassador  to  London,  found 
Lincoln  in  1861  an  offensive  personality,  and  he 
insists  that  Lincoln  under  strain  passed  through  a 
transformation  which  made  the  Lincoln  of  1864 
a  different  man  from  the  Lincoln  of  1861.  Per 
haps;  but  without  being  frivolous,  one  is  tempted 
to  quote  certain  old-fashioned  American  papers 
that  used  to  label  their  news  items  "important 
if  true." 

What  then,  was  the  public  Lincoln?  What  ex 
plains  his  vast  success?  As  a  force  in  American 
history,  what  does  he  count  for?  Perhaps  the 
most  significant  detail  in  an  answer  to  these  ques 
tions  is  the  fact  that  he  had  never  held  conspic 
uous  public  office  until  at  the  age  of  fifty-two 
he  became  President.  Psychologically  his  place 
is  in  that  small  group  of  great  geniuses  whose 


130  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

whole  significant  period  lies  in  what  we  commonly 
think  of  as  the  decline  of  life.  There  are  several 
such  in  history:  Rome  had  Caesar;  America  had 
both  Lincoln  and  Lee.  By  contrasting  these  in 
stances  with  those  of  the  other  type,  the  egoistic 
geniuses  such  as  Alexander  or  Napoleon,  we  be 
come  aware  of  some  dim  but  profound  dividing- 
line  separating  the  two  groups.  The  theory  that 
genius,  at  bottom,  is  pure  energy  seems  to  fit 
Napoleon;  but  does  it  fit  these  other  minds  who 
appear  to  meet  life  with  a  certain  indifference,  with 
a  carelessness  of  their  own  fate,  a  willingness  to 
leave  much  to  chance?  That  irresistible  passion 
for  authority  which  Napoleon  had  is  lacking  in 
these  others.  Their  basal  inspiration  seems  to 
resemble  the  impulse  of  the  artist  to  express,  rather 
than  the  impulse  of  the  man  of  action  to  possess. 
Had  it  not  been  for  secession,  Lee  would  probably 
have  ended  his  days  as  an  exemplary  superintend 
ent  of  West  Point.  And  what  of  Lincoln?  He 
dabbled  in  politics,  early  and  without  success;  he 
left  politics  for  the  law,  and  to  the  law  he  gave 
during  many  years  his  chief  devotion.  But  the 
fortuitous  break-up  of  parties,  with  the  revival  of 
the  slavery  issue,  touched  some  hidden  spring;  the 
able  provincial  lawyer  felt  again  the  political  im- 


LINCOLN  131 

pulse;  he  became  a  famous  maker  of  political 
phrases;  and  on  this  literary  basis  he  became  the 
leader  of  a  party. 

Too  little  attention  has  been  paid  to  this  pro 
gression  of  Lincoln  through  literature  into  politics. 
The  ease  with  which  he  drifted  from  one  to  the 
other  is  also  still  to  be  evaluated.  Did  it  show 
a  certain  slackness,  a  certain  aimlessness,  at  the 
bottom  of  his  nature?  Had  it,  in  a  way,  some  sort 
of  analogy  —  to  compare  homespun  with  things 
Olympian  —  to  the  vein  of  frivolity  in  the  great 
Caesar?  One  is  tempted  to  think  so.  Surely, 
here  was  one  of  those  natures  which  need  circum 
stance  to  compel  them  to  greatness  and  which  are 
not  foredoomed,  Napoleon-like,  to  seize  greatness. 
Without  encroaching  upon  the  biographical  task, 
one  may  borrow  from  biography  this  insistent  echo : 
the  anecdotes  of  Lincoln  sound  over  and  over  the 
note  of  easy-going  good  nature;  but  there  is  to  be 
found  in  many  of  the  Lincoln  anecdotes  an  over 
tone  of  melancholy  which  lingers  after  one's  im 
pression  of  his  good  nature.  Quite  naturally,  in 
such  a  biographical  atmosphere,  we  find  ourselves 
thinking  of  him  at  first  as  a  little  too  good-humored, 
a  little  too  easy-going,  a  little  prone  to  fall  into 
reverie.  We  are  not  surprised  when  we  find  his 


132  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

favorite  poem  beginning  "Oh,  why  should  the 
spirit  of  mortal  be  proud. " 

This  enigmatical  man  became  President  in  his 
fifty-second  year.  We  have  already  seen  that  his 
next  period,  the  winter  of  1860-61,  has  its  bio 
graphical  problems.  The  impression  which  he 
made  on  the  country  as  President-elect  was  dis 
tinctly  unfavorable.  Good  humor,  or  opportunism, 
or  what  you  will,  brought  together  in  Lincoln's 
Cabinet  at  least  three  men  more  conspicuous  in 
the  ordinary  sense  than  he  was  himself.  We  for 
get,  today,  how  insignificant  he  must  have  seemed 
in  a  Cabinet  that  embraced  Seward,  Cameron,  and 
Chase  —  all  large  national  figures.  WThat  would 
not  history  give  for  a  page  of  self -revelation  show 
ing  us  how  he  felt  in  the  early  days  of  that  com 
pany!  Was  he  troubled?  Did  he  doubt  his  ability 
to  hold  his  own?  Was  he  fatalistic?  Was  his  sad 
smile  his  refuge?  Did  he  merely  put  things  by, 
ignoring  tomorrow  until  tomorrow  should  arrive? 

However  we  may  guess  at  the  answers  to  such 
questions,  one  thing  now  becomes  certain.  His 
quality  of  good  humor  began  to  be  his  salvation. 
It  is  doubtful  if  any  President  except  Washington 
had  to  manage  so  difficult  a  Cabinet.  Washington 
had  seen  no  solution  to  the  problem  but  to  let 


LINCOLN  133 

Jefferson  go.  Lincoln  found  his  Cabinet  often  on 
the  verge  of  a  split,  with  two  powerful  factions 
struggling  to  control  it  and  neither  ever  gaining 
full  control.  Though  there  were  numerous  with 
drawals,  no  resigning  secretary  really  split  Lin 
coln's  Cabinet.  By  what  turns  and  twists  and 
skillful  maneuvers  Lincoln  prevented  such  a  di 
vision  and  kept  such  inveterate  enemies  as  Chase 
and  Seward  steadily  at  their  jobs  —  Chase  during 
three  years,  Seward  to  the  end — will  partly  appear 
in  the  following  pages;  but  the  whole  delicate 
achievement  cannot  be  properly  appreciated  except 
in  detailed  biography. 

All  criticism  of  Lincoln  turns  eventually  on  one 
question:  Was  he  an  opportunist?  Not  only  his 
enemies  in  his  own  time  but  many  politicians  of  a 
later  day  were  eager  to  prove  that  he  was  the  latter 
—  indeed,  seeking  to  shelter  their  own  opportun 
ism  behind  the  majesty  of  his  example.  A  modern 
instance  will  perhaps  make  vivid  this  long  stand 
ing  debate  upon  Lincoln  and  his  motives.  Merely 
for  historic  illumination  and  without  becoming  in 
vidious,  we  may  recall  the  instance  of  President 
Wilson  and  the  resignation  of  his  Secretary  of  War 
in  1916  because  Congress  would  not  meet  the  is 
sue  of  preparedness.  The  President  accepted  the 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

resignation  without  forcing  the  issue,  and  Congress 
went  on  fiddling  while  Rome  burned.  Now,  was 
the  President  an  opportunist,  merely  waiting  to  see 
what  course  events  would  take,  or  was  he  a  politi 
cal  strategist,  astutely  biding  his  time?  Similar  in 
character  is  this  old  debate  upon  Lincoln,  which  is 
perhaps  best  focussed  in  the  removal  of  Secretary 
Blair  which  we  shall  have  to  note  in  connection 
with  the  election  of  1864. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  most  objective  historian 
to  deal  with  such  questions  without  obtruding  his 
personal  views,  but  there  is  nothing  merely  in 
dividual  in  recording  the  fact  that  the  steady  drift 
of  opinion  has  been  away  from  the  conception  of 
Lincoln  as  an  opportunist.  What  once  caused  him 
to  be  thus  conceived  appears  now  to  have  been  a 
failure  to  comprehend  intelligently  the  nature  of 
his  undertaking.  More  and  more,  the  tendency 
nowadays  is  to  conceive  his  career  as  one  of  those 
few  instances  in  which  the  precise  faculties  needed 
to  solve  a  particular  problem  were  called  into  play 
at  exactly  the  critical  moment.  Our  confusions 
with  regard  to  Lincoln  have  grown  out  of  our  fail 
ure  to  appreciate  the  singularity  of  the  American 
people,  and  their  ultra-singularity  during  the  years 
in  which  he  lived.  It  remains  to  be  seen  hereafter 


LINCOLN  135 

what  strange  elements  of  sensibility,  of  wayward 
ness,  of  lack  of  imagination,  of  undisciplined  ardor, 
of  selfishness,  of  deceitfulness,  of  treachery,  com 
bined  with  heroic  ideality,  made  up  the  character 
of  that  complex  populace  which  it  was  Lincoln's 
task  to  control.  But  he  did  more  than  control  it: 
he  somehow  compounded  much  of  it  into  some 
thing  like  a  unit.  To  measure  Lincoln's  achieve 
ment  in  this  respect,  two  things  must  be  re 
membered:  on  the  one  hand,  his  task  was  not  as 
arduous  as  it  might  have  been,  because  the  most 
intellectual  part  of  the  North  had  definitely  com 
mitted  itself  either  irretrievably  for,  or  irrecon 
cilably  against,  his  policy.  Lincoln,  therefore,  did 
not  have  to  trouble  himself  with  this  portion  of  the 
population.  On  the  other  hand,  that  part  which  he 
had  to  master  included  such  emotional  rhetoricians 
as  Horace  Greeley;  such  fierce  zealots  as  Henry 
Winter  Davis  of  Maryland,  who  made  him  trouble 
indeed,  and  Benjamin  Wade,  whom  we  have  met 
already;  such  military  egoists  as  McClellan  and 
Pope;  such  crafty  double-dealers  as  his  own  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury;  such  astute  grafters  as  Cam 
eron;  such  miserable  creatures  as  certain  powerful 
capitalists  who  sacrificed  his  army  to  their  own  lust 
for  profits  filched  from  army  contracts. 


136  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

The  wonder  of  Lincoln's  achievement  is  that 
he  contrived  at  last  to  extend  his  hold  over  all 
these  diverse  elements;  that  he  persuaded  some, 
outwitted  others,  and  overcame  them  all.  The 
subtlety  of  this  task  would  have  ruined  any  states 
man  of  the  driving  sort.  Explain  Lincoln  by  any 
theory  you  will,  his  personality  was  the  keystone 
of  the  Northern  arch;  subtract  it,  and  the  arch 
falls.  The  popular  element  being  as  complex  and 
powerful  as  it  was,  how  could  the  presiding  states 
man  have  mastered  the  situation  if  he  had  not 
been  of  so  peculiar  a  sort  that  he  could  influence 
all  these  diverse  and  powerful  interests,  slowly, 
by  degrees,  without  heat,  without  the  impera 
tive  note,  almost  in  silence,  with  the  universal, 
enfolding  irresistibility  of  the  gradual  things  in 
nature,  of  the  sun  and  the  rain.  Such  was  the 
genius  of  Lincoln — all  but  passionless,  yet  so  quiet 
that  one  cannot  but  believe  in  the  great  depth  of 
his  nature. 

We  are,  even  today,  far  from  a  definitive  under 
standing  of  Lincoln's  statecraft,  but  there  is  per 
haps  justification  for  venturing  upon  one  prophecy. 
The  farther  from  him  we  get  and  the  more  clearly 
we  see  him  in  perspective,  the  more  we  shall  realize 
his  creative  influence  upon  his  party.  A  Lincoln 


LINCOLN  137 

who  is  the  moulder  of  events  and  the  great  creator 
of  public  opinion  will  emerge  at  last  into  clear  view. 
In  the  Lincoln  of  his  ultimate  biographer  there 
will  be  more  of  iron  than  of  a  less  enduring  metal 
in  the  figure  of  the  Lincoln  of  present  tradition. 
Though  none  of  his  gentleness  will  disappear,  there 
will  be  more  emphasis  placed  upon  his  firmness, 
and  upon  such  episodes  as  that  of  December,  1860, 
when  his  single  will  turned  the  scale  against  com 
promise;  upon  his  steadiness  in  the  defeat  of  his 
party  at  the  polls  in  1862;  or  his  over-ruling  of 
the  will  of  Congress  in  the  summer  of  1864  on  the 
question  of  reconstruction;  or  his  attitude  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year  when  he  believed  that  he  was 
losing  his  second  election.  Behind  all  his  gentle 
ness,  his  slowness,  behind  his  sadness,  there  will 
eventually  appear  an  inflexible  purpose,  strong  as 
steel,  unwavering  as  fate. 

The  Civil  War  was  in  truth  Lincoln's  war. 
Those  modern  pacifists  who  claim  him  for  their 
own  are  beside  the  mark.  They  will  never  get 
over  their  illusions  about  Lincoln  until  they  see,  as 
all  the  world  is  beginning  to  see,  that  his  career  has 
universal  significance  because  of  its  bearing  on  the 
universal  modern  problem  of  democracy.  It  will 
not  do  ever  to  forget  that  he  was  a  man  of  the 


138  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

people,  always  playing  the  hand  of  the  people,  in 
the  limited  social  sense  of  that  word,  though  play 
ing  it  with  none  of  the  heat  usually  met  with  in 
the  statesmen  of  successful  democracy  from  Cleon 
to  Robespierre,  from  Andrew  Jackson  to  Lloyd 
George.  His  gentleness  does  not  remove  Lincoln 
from  that  stern  category.  Throughout  his  life, 
besides  his  passion  for  the  Union,  besides  his  an 
tipathy  to  slavery,  there  dwelt  in  his  very  heart 
love  of  and  faith  in  the  plain  people.  We  shall 
never  see  him  in  true  historic  perspective  until 
we  conceive  him  as  the  instrument  of  a  vast 
social  idea  —  the  determination  to  make  a  govern 
ment  based  on  the  plain  people  successful  in  war. 

He  did  not  scruple  to  seize  power  when  he 
thought  the  cause  of  the  people  demanded  it,  and 
his  enemies  were  prompt  to  accuse  him  of  holding 
to  the  doctrine  that  the  end  justified  the  means 
—  a  hasty  conclusion  which  will  have  to  be  re 
considered;  what  concerns  us  more  closely  is  the 
definite  conviction  that  he  felt  no  sacrifice  too 
great  if  it  advanced  the  happiness  of  the  generality 
of  mankind.  The  final  significance  of  Lincoln  as 
a  statesman  of  democracy  is  brought  out  most 
clearly  in  his  foreign  relations.  Fate  put  it  into 
the  hands  of  England  to  determine  whether  his 


LINCOLN  139 

Government  should  stand  or  fall.  Though  it  is 
doubtful  how  far  the  turning  of  the  scale  of  Eng 
lish  policy  in  Lincoln's  favor  was  due  to  the  in 
fluence  of  the  rising  power  of  English  democracy, 
it  is  plain  that  Lincoln  thought  of  himself  as  having 
one  purpose  with  that  movement  which  he  re 
garded  as  an  ally.  Beyond  all  doubt  among  the 
most  grateful  messages  he  ever  received  were  the 
New  Year  greetings  of  confidence  and  sympathy 
which  were  sent  by  English  workingmen  in  1863. 
A  few  sentences  in  his  Letter  to  the  Workingmen  of 
London  help  us  to  look  through  his  eyes  and  see 
his  life  and  its  struggles  as  they  appeared  to  him 
in  relation  to  world  history : 

As  these  sentiments  [expressed  by  the  English 
workmen]  are  manifestly  the  enduring  support  of  the 
free  institutions  of  England,  so  am  I  sure  that  they 
constitute  the  only  reliable  basis  for  free  institutions 
throughout  the  world.  .  .  .  The  resources,  advantages, 
and  power  of  the  American  people  are  very  great,  and 
they  have  consequently  succeeded  to  equally  great 
responsibilities.  It  seems  to  have  devolved  upon  them 
to  test  whether  a  government  established  on  the 
principles  of  human  freedom  can  be  maintained  against 
an  effort  to  build  one  upon  the  exclusive  foundation  of 
human  bondage.  They  will  rejoice  with  me  in  the 
new  evidence  which  your  proceedings  furnish  that  the 
magnanimity  they  are  exhibiting  is  justly  estimated 


140  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

by  the  true  friends  of  freedom  and  humanity  in  foreign 
countries. 


Written  at  the  opening  of  that  terrible  year, 
1863,  these  words  are  a  forward  link  with  those 
more  celebrated  words  spoken  toward  its  close  at 
Gettysburg.  Perhaps  at  no  time  during  the  war, 
except  during  the  few  days  immediately  following 
his  own  reelection  a  year  later,  did  Lincoln  come  so 
near  being  free  from  care  as  then.  Perhaps  that 
explains  why  his  fundamental  literary  power  re 
asserted  itself  so  remarkably,  why  this  speech  of 
his  at  the  dedication  of  the  National  Cemetery  at 
Gettysburg  on  the  19th  of  November,  1863,  re 
mains  one  of  the  most  memorable  orations  ever 
delivered: 

Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in 
liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 
whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and 
so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great 
battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a 
portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those 
who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live. 
It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do 
this. 


fttansion. 


£y£o   /\>-<rii<ri^f^ 


ORIGINAL  DRAFT  OF  LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

Lincoln  held  this  copy  in  his  hand  while  speaking.  The  first  page 
is  written  in  ink,  on  White  House  stationery  in  use  at  that  time; 
the  second  page  is  in  pencil  on  a  larger  sheet  of  paper.  Both  sheets 
are  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  Washington.  Reproduced  in  Lm- 
coln's  Gettysburg  Address,  by  Or  ton  H.  Carmichaei. 


LINCOLN  141 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot 
consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  conse 
crated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say 
here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It 
is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus 
far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us:  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   RULE   OF   LINCOLN 

THE  fundamental  problem  of  the  Lincoln  Gov 
ernment  was  the  raising  of  armies,  the  sudden 
conversion  of  a  community  which  was  essentially 
industrial  into  a  disciplined  military  organization. 
The  accomplishment  of  so  gigantic  a  transforma 
tion  taxed  the  abilities  of  two  Secretaries  of  War. 
The  first,  Simon  Cameron,  owed  his  place  in  the 
Cabinet  to  the  double  fact  of  being  one  of  the  ablest 
of  political  bosses  and  of  standing  high  among 
Lincoln's  competitors  for  the  Presidential  nomina 
tion.  Personally  honest,  he  was  also  a  political 
cynic  to  whom  tradition  ascribes  the  epigram  de 
fining  an  honest  politician  as  one  who  "when  he  is 
bought,  will  stay  bought."  As  Secretary  of  War 
he  showed  no  particular  ability. 

In  1861,  when  the  tide  of  enthusiasm  was  in 
flood,  and  volunteers  in  hosts  were  responding  to 
acts  of  Congress  for  the  raising  and  maintenance 

142 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  143 

of  a  volunteer  army,  Cameron  reported  in  Decem 
ber  that  the  Government  had  on  foot  660,971  men 
and  could  have  had  a  million  except  that  Congress 
had  limited  the  number  of  volunteers  to  be  re 
ceived.  When  this  report  was  prepared,  Lincoln 
was,  so  to  speak,  in  the  trough  of  two  seas.  The 
devotion  which  had  been  offered  to  him  in  April, 
1861,  when  the  North  seemed  to  rise  as  one  man, 
had  undergone  a  reaction.  Eight  months  without 
a  single  striking  military  success,  together  with  the 
startling  defeat  at  Bull  Run,  had  had  their  inevi 
table  effect.  Democracies  are  mercurial;  variabil 
ity  seems  to  be  part  of  the  price  of  freedom.  With 
childlike  faith  in  their  cause,  the  Northern  people, 
in  midsummer,  were  crying,  "On  to  Richmond!" 
In  the  autumn,  stung  by  defeat,  they  were  ready 
to  cry,  "Down  with  Lincoln." 

In  a  subsequent  report,  the  War  Department 
confessed  that  at  the  beginning  of  hostilities, 
"nearly  all  our  arms  and  ammunition"  came  from 
foreign  countries.  One  great  reason  why  no  mili 
tary  successes  relieve  the  gloom  of  1861  was 
that,  from  a  soldier's  point  of  view,  there  were  no 
armies.  Soldiers,  it  is  true,  there  were  in  myriads; 
but  arms,  ammunition,  and  above  all,  organization 
were  lacking.  The  supplies  in  the  government 


144  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

arsenals  had  been  provided  for  an  army  of  but 
a  few  thousand.  Strive  as  they  would,  all  the 
factories  in  the  country  could  not  come  any 
where  near  making  arms  for  half  a  million  men; 
nor  did  the  facilities  of  those  days  make  it  pos 
sible  for  munition  plants  to  spring  up  over 
night.  Had  it  not  been  that  the  Confederacy 
was  equally  hard  pushed,  even  harder  pushed,  to 
find  arms  and  ammunition,  the  war  would  have 
ended  inside  Seward's  ninety  days,  through  sheer 
lack  of  powder. 

Even  with  the  respite  given  by  the  unprepared- 
ness  of  the  South,  and  while  Lincoln  hurriedly  col 
lected  arms  and  ammunition  from  abroad,  the 
startled  nation,  thus  suddenly  forced  into  a  real 
ization  of  what  war  meant,  lost  its  head.  From 
its  previous  reckless  trust  in  sheer  enthusiasm,  it 
reacted  to  a  distrust  of  almost  everything.  Why 
were  the  soldiers  not  armed?  Why  did  not  mil 
lions  of  rounds  of  cartridges  fall  like  manna  out  of 
the  sky?  Why  did  not  the  crowds  of  volunteers 
become  armies  at  a  word  of  command?  One  of 
the  darkest  pages  in  American  history  records  the 
way  in  which  the  crowd,  undisciplined  to  endure 
strain,  turned  upon  Lincoln  in  its  desire  to  find  in 
the  conduct  of  their  leader  a  pretext  for  venting 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  145 

upon  him  the  fierceness  of  their  anxiety.     Such  a 
pretext  they  found  in  his  treatment  of  Fremont. 

The  singular  episode  of  Fremont's  arrogance  in 
1861  is  part  of  the  story  of  the  border  States  whose 
friendship  was  eagerly  sought  by  both  sides  — 
Maryland,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  those  moun 
tainous  counties  which  in  time  were  to  become 
West  Virginia.  To  retain  Maryland  and  thus  to 
keep  open  the  connection  between  the  Capital  and 
the  North  was  one  of  Lincoln's  deepest  anxieties. 
By  degrees  the  hold  of  the  Government  in  Mary 
land  was  made  secure,  and  the  State  never  seceded. 
Kentucky,  too,  held  to  the  Union,  though,  during 
many  anxious  months  in  1861,  Lincoln  did  not 
know  whether  this  State  was  to  be  for  him  or 
against  him.  The  Virginia  mountains,  from  the 
first,  seemed  a  more  hopeful  field,  for  the  moun 
taineers  had  opposed  the  Virginia  secession  and, 
as  soon  as  it  was  accomplished,  had  begun  holding 
meetings  of  protest.  In  the  meantime  George 
B.  McClellan,  with  the  rank  of  general  bestowed 
upon  him  by  the  Federal  Government,  had  been 
appointed  to  command  the  militia  of  Ohio.  He 
was  sent  to  assist  the  insurgent  mountaineers,  and 
with  him  went  the  Ohio  militia.  From  this  situa 
tion  and  from  the  small  engagements  with  Con- 

10 


146  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

federate  forces  in  which  McClellan  was  successful, 
there  resulted  the  separate  State  of  West  Virginia 
and  the  extravagant  popular  notion  that  McClellan 
was  a  great  general.  His  successes  were  contrasted 
in  the  ordinary  mind  with  the  crushing  defeat  at 
Bull  Run,  which  happened  at  about  the  same  time. 

The  most  serious  of  all  these  struggles  in  the 
border  States,  however,  was  that  which  took  place 
in  Missouri,  where,  owing  to  the  strength  of  both 
factions  and  their  promptness  in  organizing,  real 
war  began  immediately.  A  Union  army  led  by 
General  Nathaniel  Lyon  attacked  the  Confederates 
with  great  spirit  at  Wilson's  Creek  but  was  beaten 
back  in  a  fierce  and  bloody  battle  in  which  their 
leader  was  killed. 

Even  before  these  events  Fremont  had  been 
appointed  to  chief  command  in  Missouri,  and  here 
he  at  once  began  a  strange  course  of  dawdling  and 
posing.  His  military  career  must  be  left  to  the 
military  historians  —  who  have  not  ranked  him 
among  the  great  generals.  Civil  history  accuses 
him,  if  not  of  using  his  new  position  to  make  il 
legitimate  profits,  at  least  of  showing  reckless 
favoritism  toward  those  who  did.  It  is  hardly 
unfair  to  say  that  Lincoln,  in  bearing  with  Fre 
mont  as  long  as  he  did,  showed  a  touch  of  amiable 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  147 

weakness;  and  yet,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
the  President  knew  that  the  country  was  in  a 
dangerous  mood,  that  Fremont  was  immensely 
popular,  and  that  any  change  might  be  misunder 
stood.  Though  Lincoln  hated  to  appear  anything 
but  a  friend  to  a  fallen  political  rival,  he  was  at 
last  forced  to  act.  Frauds  in  government  con 
tracts  at  St.  Louis  were  a  public  scandal,  and  the 
reputation  of  the  government  had  to  be  saved  by 
the  removal  of  Fremont  in  November,  1861.  As 
an  immediate  consequence  of  this  action  the  over 
strained  nerves  of  great  numbers  of  people  snapped. 
Fremont's  personal  followers,  as  well  as  the  aboli 
tionists  whom  he  had  actively  supported  while  in 
command  in  Missouri,  and  all  that  vast  crowd 
of  excitable  people  who  are  unable  to  stand  silent 
under  strain,  clamored  against  Lincoln  in  the  wild 
est  and  most  absurd  vein.  He  was  accused  of 
being  a  "dictator";  he  was  called  an  "imbecile"; 
he  ought  to  be  impeached,  and  a  new  party,  with 
Fremont  as  its  leader,  should  be  formed  to  prose 
cute  the  war.  But  through  all  this  clamor  Lincoln 
kept  his  peace  and  let  the  heathen  rage. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year,  popular  rage  turned 
suddenly  on  Cameron,  who,  as  Secretary  of  War, 
had  taken  an  active  but  proper  part  in  the  investi- 


148  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

gation  of  Fremont's  conduct.  It  was  one  of  those 
tremulous  moments  when  people  are  desperately 
eager  to  have  something  done  and  are  ready  to  be 
lieve  anything.  Though  McClellan,  now  in  chief 
command  of  the  Union  forces,  had  an  immense 
army  which  was  fast  getting  properly  equipped^ 
month  faded  into  month  without  his  advancing 
against  the  enemy.  Again  the  popular  cry  was 
raised,  "On  to  Richmond!"  It  was  at  this  mo 
ment  of  military  inactivity  and  popular  restless 
ness  that  charges  of  peculation  were  brought  for 
ward  against  Cameron. 

These  charges  both  were  and  were  not  well 
founded.  Himself  a  rich  man,  it  is  not  likely 
that  Cameron  profited  personally  by  government 
contracts,  even  though  the  acrimonious  Thad 
Stevens  said  of  his  appointment  as  Secretary 
that  it  would  add  "another  million  to  his  for 
tune."  There  seems  little  doubt,  however,  that 
Cameron  showered  lucrative  contracts  upon  his 
political  retainers.  And  no  boss  has  ever  held 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania  in  a  firmer  grip.  His 
tenure  of  the  Secretaryship  of  War  was  one  means 
to  that  end. 

The  restless  alarm  of  the  country  at  large  ex 
pressed  itself  in  such  extravagant  words  as  these 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  149 

which  Senator  Grimes  wrote  to  Senator  Fessenden: 
"We  are  going  to  destruction  as  fast  as  imbecility, 
corruption,  and  the  wheels  of  time  can  carry  us. " 
So  dissatisfied,  indeed,  was  Congress  with  the  con 
duct  of  the  war  that  it  appointed  a  committee 
of  investigation.  During  December,  1861,  and 
January,  1862,  the  committee  was  summoning 
generals  before  it,  questioning  them,  listening  to 
all  manner  of  views,  accomplishing  nothing,  but 
rendering  more  and  more  feverish  an  atmosphere 
already  surcharged  with  anxiety.  On  the  floors 
of  Congress  debate  raged  as  to  who  was  respon 
sible  for  the  military  inaction  —  for  the  country's 
"  unpreparedness, "  we  should  say  today  —  and  as 
to  whether  Cameron  was  honest.  Eventually  the 
House  in  a  vote  of  censure  condemned  the  Secre 
tary  of  War. 

Long  before  this  happened,  however,  Lincoln 
had  interfered  and  very  characteristically  removed 
the  cause  of  trouble,  while  taking  upon  himself 
the  responsibility  for  the  situation,  by  nominating 
Cameron  minister  to  Russia,  and  by  praising  him 
for  his  "ability,  patriotism,  and  fidelity  to  the 
public  trust."  Though  the  President  had  not 
sufficient  hold  upon  the  House  to  prevent  the 
vote  of  censure,  his  influence  was  strong  in  the 


150  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Senate,  and  the  new  appointment  of  Cameron  was 
promptly  confirmed. 

There  was  in  Washington  at  this  time  that  grim 
man  who  had  served  briefly  as  Attorney-General 
in  the  Cabinet  of  Buchanan  —  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 
He  despised  the  President  and  expressed  his  opin 
ion  in  such  words  as  "the  painful  imbecility  of 
Lincoln. "  The  two  had  one  personal  recollection 
in  common:  long  before,  in  a  single  case,  at  Cin 
cinnati,  the  awkward  Lincoln  had  been  called  in 
as  associate  counsel  to  serve  the  convenience  of 
Stanton,  who  was  already  a  lawyer  of  national  re 
pute.  To  his  less-known  associate  Stanton  showed 
a  brutal  rudeness  that  was  characteristic.  It 
would  have  been  hard  in  1861  to  find  another  man 
more  difficult  to  get  on  with.  Headstrong,  iras 
cible,  rude,  he  had  a  sharp  tongue  which  he  de 
lighted  in  using;  but  he  was  known  to  be  inflexibly 
honest,  and  was  supposed  to  have  great  executive 
ability.  He  was  also  a  friend  of  McClellan,  and 
if  anybody  could  rouse  that  tortoise-like  general, 
Stanton  might  be  supposed  to  be  the  man.  He 
had  been  a  valiant  Democrat,  and  Democratic 
support  was  needed  by  the  government.  Lincoln 
astonished  him  with  his  appointment  as  Secretary 
of  War  in  January,  1862.  Stanton  justified  the 


EDWIN  If.  STAN  TON 
Photograph  by  Brady. 


150  LINCOLN  AND  THE      M< 

;i  ttas 

There  was  in  Washington  at  th»*  trr.<-  _  ilm 

man  who  had  served  briefly  as  A 
in  the  Cabinet  of  Buchanan  —  Ed\vi?>  \|.  : 
He  despised  the  President  and  expre*- 
ion  in  such  words  as  "the  painful  iriii 
Lincoln."     The  two  had  one  personal  re< 
in  common:  ioag  before,  in  a  single  case,  * 
cinnati,  the  awk^aVfi4  x^J?(f  been  call- 

as  associate  criun^^yfW°tt5?  convenient 

-s-known  associate  Stanton  showed 
a    brutal   rudeness   that   was   characteristic.      It 
would  have  been  hard  in  1861  to  find  another  man 
more  difficult  to  get  on  with.     Headstrong,  ir&.< 
cible,  rude,  he  had  a  sharp  tongue  v.  i*- 

liglited  in  using;  but  he  was  know? 
honest,  and  was  supposed  to  ha  vi 
ability.     He  was  also  a  friend  of  McCIdl.rn      ml 
if  anybody  could  rouse  that 

Stanton  might  be  support  "  bt  the  iimn.  He 
bad  been  a  valiant  Dcirrv  **,  and  Democratic 
support  was  needed  by  :i --•  ^vern^cnt.  Lincoln 

in  Januar>%  IStoV.     Stanton  justifieti  ibe 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  151 

President's  choice,  and  under  his  strong  if  ruth 
less  hand  the  War  Department  became  sternly 
efficient.  The  whole  story  of  Stanton's  relations 
to  his  chief  is  packed,  like  the  Arabian  genius 
in  the  fisherman's  vase,  into  one  remark  of  Lin 
coln's.  "Did  Stanton  tell  you  I  was  a  fool?" 
said  Lincoln  on  one  occasion,  in  the  odd,  smiling 
way  he  had.  "Then  I  expect  I  must  be  one, 
for  he  is  almost  always  right,  and  generally  says 
what  he  means. " 

In  spite  of  his  efficiency  and  personal  force, 
Stanton  was  unable  to  move  his  friend  McClellan, 
with  whom  he  soon  quarreled.  Each  now  sought 
in  his  own  way  to  control  the  President,  though 
neither  understood  Lincoln's  character.  From  Mc 
Clellan,  Lincoln  endured  much  condescension  of  a 
kind  perilously  near  impertinence.  To  Stanton, 
Lincoln's  patience  seemed  a  mystery;  to  McClel 
lan  —  a  vain  man,  full  of  himself  —  the  President 
who  would  merely  smile  at  this  bullyragging  on 
the  part  of  one  of  his  subordinates  seemed  indeed 
a  spiritless  creature.  Meanwhile  Lincoln,  appar 
ently  devoid  of  sensibility,  was  seeking  during  the 
anxious  months  of  1862,  in  one  case,  merely  how 
to  keep  his  petulant  Secretary  in  harness;  in  the 
other,  how  to  quicken  his  tortoise  of  a  general. 


152  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Stanton  made  at  least  one  great  blunder. 
Though  he  had  been  three  months  in  office,  and 
McClellan  was  still  inactive,  there  were  already 
several  successes  to  the  credit  of  the  Union  arms. 
The  Monitor  and  Virginia  (Merrimac)  had  fought 
their  famous  duel,  and  Grant  had  taken  Fort 
Donelson.  The  latter  success  broke  through  the 
long  gloom  of  the  North  and  caused,  as  Holmes 
wrote,  "  a  delirium  of  excitement."  Stanton  rashly 
concluded  that  he  now  had  the  game  in  his  hands, 
and  that  a  sufficient  number  of  men  had  volun 
teered.  This  civilian  Secretary  of  War,  who  had 
still  much  to  learn  of  military  matters,  issued 
an  order  putting  a  stop  to  recruiting.  Shortly 
afterwards  great  disaster  befell  the  Union  arms. 
McClellan,  before  Richmond,  was  checked  in  May. 
Early  in  July,  his  peninsula  campaign  ended  dis 
astrously  in  the  terrible  "Seven  Days'  Battles." 

Anticipating  McClellan's  failure,  Lincoln  had 
already  determined  to  call  for  more  troops.  On 
July  1st,  he  called  upon  the  Governors  of  the 
States  to  provide  him  with  300,000  men  to  serve 
three  years.  But  the  volunteering  enthusiasm  — 
explain  it  as  you  will  —  had  suffered  a  check.  The 
psychological  moment  had  passed.  So  slow  was 
the  response  to  the  call  of  July  1st,  that  another 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  153 

appeal  was  made  early  in  August,  this  time  for 
300,000  men  to  serve  only  nine  months.  But  this 
also  failed  to  rouse  the  country.  A  reenforcement 
of  only  87,000  men  was  raised  in  response  to  this 
emergency  call.  The  able  lawyer  in  the  War  De 
partment  had  still  much  to  learn  about  men  and 
nations. 

After  this  check,  terrible  incidents  of  war  came 
thick  and  fast  —  the  defeat  at  Second  Manassas, 
in  late  August;  the  horrible  drawn  battle  of  Antie- 
tam  —  Sharpsburg,  in  September;  Fredericksburg, 
that  carnival  of  slaughter,  in  December;  the  dearly 
bought  victory  of  Murfreesboro,  which  opened 
1863.  There  were  other  disastrous  events  at  least 
as  serious.  Foreign  affairs1  were  at  their  darkest. 
Within  the  political  coalition  supporting  Lincoln, 
contention  was  the  order  of  the  day.  There  was 
general  distrust  of  the  President.  Most  alarming 
of  all,  that  ebb  of  the  wave  of  enthusiasm  which 
began  in  midsummer,  1861,  reached  in  the  autumn 
of  1862  perhaps  its  lowest  point.  The  measure  of 
the  reaction  against  Lincoln  was  given  in  the  Con 
gressional  election,  in  which,  though  the  Govern 
ment  still  retained  a  working  majority,  the  Demo 
crats  gained  thirty-three  seats. 

'  See  Chapter  IX. 


154  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

If  there  could  be  such  a  thing  as  a  true  psy 
chological  history  of  the  war,  one  of  its  most 
interesting  pages  would  determine  just  how  far 
Stanton  was  responsible,  through  his  strange 
blunder  over  recruiting,  for  the  check  to  en 
thusiasm  among  the  Northern  people.  With  this 
speculation  there  is  connected  a  still  unsolved 
problem  in  statistics.  To  what  extent  did  the 
anti-Lincoln  vote,  in  1862,  stand  for  sympathy 
with  the  South,  and  how  far  was  it  the  hopeless 
surrender  of  Unionists  who  felt  that  their  cause 
was  lost?  Though  certainty  on  this  point  is  ap 
parently  impossible,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
at  the  opening  of  1863,  the  Government  felt  it 
must  apply  pressure  to  the  flagging  spirits  of  its 
supporters.  In  order  to  reenforce  the  armies  and 
to  push  the  war  through,  there  was  plainly  but  one 
course  to  be  followed  —  conscription. 

The  government  leaders  in  Congress  brought  in 
a  Conscription  Act  early  in  the  year.  The  hot 
debates  upon  this  issue  dragged  through  a  month's 
time,  and  now  make  instructive  reading  for  the 
present  generation  that  has  watched  the  Great 
War.1  The  Act  of  1863  was  not  the  work  of 

1  The  battle  over  conscription  in  England  was  anticipated  in 
America  sixty-four  years  ago.  Bagot  says  that  the  average  British 
point  of  view  may  be  expressed  thus:  "What  I  am  sayin'  is  this  here 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  155 

soldiers,  but  was  literally  "made  in  Congress." 
Stanton  grimly  made  the  best  of  it,  though  he 
unwaveringly  condemned  some  of  its  most  con 
spicuous  provisions.  His  business  was  to  retrieve 
his  blunder  of  the  previous  year,  and  he  was 
successful.  Imperfect  as  it  was,  the  Conscription 
Act,  with  later  supplementary  legislation,  enabled 
him  to  replace  the  wastage  of  the  Union  armies 
and  steadily  to  augment  them.  At  the  close  of 
the  war,  the  Union  had  on  foot  a  million  men  with 
an  enrolled  reserve  of  two  millions  and  a  half, 
subject  to  call. 

The  Act  provided  for  a  complete  military  census, 
for  which  purpose  the  country  was  divided  into 
enrollment  districts.  Every  able-bodied  male  citi 
zen,  or  intending  citizen,  between  the  ages  of 
twenty  and  forty-five,  unless  exempted  for  certain 
specified  reasons,  was  to  be  enrolled  as  a  member 
of  the  national  forces;  these  forces  were  to  be  cal 
led  to  the  colors—  "drafted,"  the  term  was  —  as 
the  Government  found  need  of  them;  each  sue- 
as  I  was  a  sayin'  yesterday."  The  Anglo-Saxon  mind  is  much  the 
same  the  world  over.  In  America,  today,  the  enemies  of  effective 
military  organization  would  do  well  to  search  the  arguments  of  their 
skillful  predecessors  in  1863,  who  fought  to  the  last  ditch  for  a  mili 
tary  system  that  would  make  inescapable  "peace  at  any  price." 
For  the  modern  believers  in  conscription,  one  of  their  best  bits  of 
political  thunder  is  still  the  defense  of  it  by  Lincoln. 


156  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

cessive  draft  was  to  be  apportioned  among  the 
districts  in  the  ratio  of  the  military  population, 
and  the  number  required  was  to  be  drawn  by  lot; 
if  the  district  raised  its  quota  voluntarily,  no  draft 
would  be  made;  any  drafted  man  could  offer  a  sub 
stitute  or  could  purchase  his  discharge  for  three 
hundred  dollars.  The  latter  provision  especially 
was  condemned  by  Stan  ton.  It  was  seized  upon 
by  demagogues  as  a  device  for  giving  rich  men  an 
advantage  over  poor  men. 

American  politics  during  the  war  form  a  wildly 
confused  story,  so  intricate  that  it  cannot  be  made 
clear  in  a  brief  statement.  But  this  central  fact 
may  be  insisted  upon:  in  the  North,  there  were 
two  political  groups  that  were  the  poles  around 
which  various  other  groups  revolved  and  combined, 
only  to  fly  asunder  and  recombine,  with  all  the 
maddening  inconstancy  of  a  kaleidoscope.  The 
two  irreconcilable  elements  were  the  "war  party" 
made  up  of  determined  men  resolved  to  see  things 
through,  and  the  "copperheads"1  who  for  one 
reason  or  another  united  in  a  faithful  struggle 
for  peace  at  any  price.  Around  the  copperheads 

1  The  term  arose,  it  has  been  said,  from  the  use  of  the  copper  cent 
with  its  head  of  Liberty  as  a  peace  button.  But  a  more  plausible  ex 
planation  associates  the  peace  advocates  with  the  deadly  copperhead 
snake. 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  157 

gathered  the  various  and  singular  groups  who 
helped  to  make  up  the  ever  fluctuating  "peace 
party."  It  is  an  error  to  assume  that  this  peace 
party  was  animated  throughout  by  fondness  for 
the  Confederacy.  Though  many  of  its  members 
were  so  actuated,  the  core  of  the  party  seems  to 
have  been  that  strange  type  of  man  who  sustained 
political  evasion  in  the  old  days,  who  thought  that 
sweet  words  can  stop  bullets,  whose  programme 
in  1863  called  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities  and  a 
general  convention  of  all  the  States,  and  who 
promised  as  the  speedy  result  of  a  debauch  of  talk 
a  carnival  of  bright  eyes  glistening  with  the  tears 
of  revived  affection.  With  these  strange  people  in 
1863  there  combined  a  number  of  different  types: 
the  still  stranger,  still  less  creditable  visionary,  of 
whom  much  hereafter;  the  avowed  friends  of  the 
principle  of  state  rights;  all  those  who  distrusted 
the  Government  because  of  its  anti-slavery  sym 
pathies;  Quakers  and  others  with  moral  scruples 
against  war;  and  finally,  sincere  legalists  to  whom 
the  Conscription  Act  appeared  unconstitutional. 
In  the  spring  of  1863  the  issue  of  conscription  drew 
the  line  fairly  sharply  between  the  two  political 
coalitions,  though  each  continued  to  fluctuate, 
more  or  less,  to  the  end  of  the  war. 


158  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

The  peace  party  of  1863  has  been  denounced 
hastily  rather  than  carefully  studied.  Its  precise 
machinations  are  not  fully  known,  but  the  ugly 
fact  stands  forth  that  a  portion  of  the  foreign 
population  of  the  North  was  roused  in  1863  to 
rebellion.  The  occasion  was  the  beginning  of  the 
first  draft  under  the  new  law,  in  July,  1863,  and 
the  scene  of  the  rebellion  was  the  City  of  New 
York.  The  opponents  of  conscription  had  already 
made  inflammatory  attacks  on  the  Government. 
Conspicuous  among  them  was  Horatio  Seymour, 
who  had  been  elected  Governor  of  New  York  in 
that  wave  of  reaction  in  the  autumn  of  1862. 
Several  New  York  papers  joined  the  crusade. 
In  Congress,  the  Government  had  already  been 
threatened  with  civil  war  if  the  act  was  enforced. 
Nevertheless,  the  public  drawing  by  lot  began  on 
the  days  announced.  In  New  York  the  first 
drawing  took  place  on  Saturday,  July  12th,  and 
the  lists  were  published  in  the  Sunday  papers. 
As  might  be  expected,  many  of  the  men  drawn 
were  of  foreign  birth,  and  all  day  Sunday,  the  for 
eign  quarter  of  New  York  was  a  cauldron  boiling. 

On  Monday,  the  resumption  of  the  drawing  was 
the  signal  for  revolt.  A  mob  invaded  one  of  the 
conscription  offices,  drove  off  the  men  in  charge, 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  159 

and  set  fire  to  the  building.  In  a  short  while,  the 
streets  were  filled  with  dense  crowds  of  foreign- 
born  workmen  shouting,  "Down  with  the  rich 
men,"  and  singing,  "We'll  hang  Horace  Greeley 
on  a  sour  apple  tree."  Houses  of  prominent 
citizens  were  attacked  and  set  on  fire,  and  sev 
eral  drafting  offices  were  burned.  Many  negroes 
who  were  seized  were  either  clubbed  to  death  or 
hanged  to  lamp  posts.  Even  an  orphan  asylum 
for  colored  children  was  burned.  The  office  of 
the  Tribune  was  raided,  gutted,  and  set  on  fire. 
Finally  a  dispatch  to  Stanton,  early  in  the  night, 
reported  that  the  mob  had  taken  possession  of 
the  city. 

The  events  of  the  next  day  were  no  less  shocking. 
The  city  was  almost  stripped  of  soldiers,  as  all 
available  reserves  had  already  been  hurried  south 
when  Lee  was  advancing  toward  Gettysburg.  But 
such  militia  as  could  be  mustered,  with  a  small 
force  of  federal  troops,  fought  the  mob  in  the 
streets.  Barricades  were  carried  by  storm;  blood 
was  freely  shed.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the 
fourth  day  that  the  rebellion  was  finally  quelled, 
chiefly  by  New  York  regiments,  hurried  north  by 
Stanton  —  among  them  the  famous  Seventh  — 
which  swept  the  streets  with  cannon. 


160  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

The  aftermath  of  the  New  York  riots  was  a  cor 
respondence  between  Lincoln  and  Seymour.  The 
latter  had  demanded  a  suspension  of  the  draft 
until  the  courts  could  decide  on  the  constitu 
tionality  of  the  Conscription  Act.  Lincoln  refused. 
With  ten  thousand  troops  now  assembled  in 
New  York,  the  draft  was  resumed,  and  there  was 
no  further  trouble. 

The  resistance  to  the  Government  in  New  York 
was  but  the  most  terrible  episode  in  a  protracted 
contention  which  involves,  as  Americans  are  be 
ginning  to  see,  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
and  permanent  questions  of  Lincoln's  rule:  how 
can  the  exercise  of  necessary  war  powers  by  the 
President  be  reconciled  with  the  guarantees  of 
liberty  in  the  Constitution?  It  is  unfortunate 
that  Lincoln  did  not  draw  up  a  fully  rounded 
statement  of  his  own  theory  regarding  this  prob 
lem,  instead  of  leaving  it  to  be  inferred  from 
detached  observations  and  from  his  actions. 
Apparently,  he  felt  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  follow  the  Roman  precedent  and,  in  a  case  of 
emergency,  frankly  permit  the  use  of  extraordi 
nary  power.  We  may  attribute  to  him  that  point 
of  view  expressed  by  a  distinguished  Democrat 
of  our  own  day:  "Democracy  has  to  learn  how 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  161 

to  use  the  dictator  as  a  necessary  war  tool."1 
Whether  Lincoln  set  a  good  model  for  democracy 
in  this  perilous  business  is  still  to  be  determined. 
His  actions  have  been  freely  labeled  usurpation. 
The  first  notorious  instance  occurred  in  1861, 
during  the  troubles  in  Maryland,  when  he  au 
thorized  military  arrests  of  suspected  persons. 
For  the  release  of  one  of  these,  a  certain  Merry- 
man,  Chief  Justice  Taney  issued  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus.3  Lincoln  authorized  his  military  repre 
sentatives  to  disregard  the  writ.  In  1862  he 
issued  a  proclamation  suspending  the  privileges 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  cases  of  persons 
charged  with  "discouraging  volunteer  enlistments, 

1  President  Edwin  A.  Alderman,  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 

a  The  Constitution  permits  the  suspension  of  the  privileges  of  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  "when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public 
safety  may  require  it, "  but  fails  to  provide  a  method  of  suspension. 
Taney  held  that  the  power  to  suspend  lay  with  Congress.  Five  years 
afterward,  when  Chase  was  Chief  Justice,  the  Supreme  Court,  in  ex 
parte  Milligan,  took  the  same  view  and  further  declared  that  even 
Congress  could  not  deprive  a  citizen  of  his  right  to  trial  by  jury  so 
long  as  the  local  civil  courts  are  in  operation.  The  Confederate 
experience  differed  from  the  Federal  inasmuch  as  Congress  kept 
control  of  the  power  to  suspend  the  writ.  But  both  governments 
made  use  of  such  suspension  to  set  up  martial  law  in  districts  where 
the  local  courts  were  open  but  where,  from  one  cause  or  another,  the 
Administration  had  not  confidence  in  their  effectiveness.  Under 
ex  parte  Milligan,  both  Presidents  and  both  Congresses  were  guilty 
of  usurpation.  The  mere  layman  waits  for  the  next  great  hour  of 
trial  to  learn  whether  this  interpretation  will  stand.  In  the  Milligan 
case  the  Chief  Justice  and  three  others  dissented. 


162  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

resisting  military  drafts,  or  guilty  of  any  disloyal 
practice.  ..."  Such  persons  were  to  be  tried 
by  military  commissions. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  proclamation 
caused  something  like  a  panic  in  many  minds, 
filled  them  with  the  dread  of  military  despotism, 
and  contributed  to  the  reaction  against  Lincoln 
in  the  autumn  of  1862.  Under  this  proclamation 
many  arrests  were  made  and  many  victims  were 
sent  to  prison.  So  violent  was  the  opposition 
that  on  March  3,  1863,  Congress  passed  an  act 
which  attempted  to  bring  the  military  and  civil 
courts  into  cooperation,  though  it  did  not  take 
away  from  the  President  all  the  dictatorial  power 
which  he  had  assumed.  The  act  seems,  how 
ever,  to  have  had  little  general  effect,  and  it 
was  disregarded  in  the  most  celebrated  of  the 
cases  of  military  arrest,  that  of  Clement  L.  Val- 
landigham. 

A  representative  from  Ohio  and  one  of  the  most 
vituperative  anti-Lincoln  men  in  Congress,  Val- 
landigham  in  a  sensational  speech  applied  to  the 
existing  situation  Chatham's  words,  "My  lords, 
you  cannot  conquer  America.'*  He  professed  to 
see  before  him  in  the  future  nothing  "but  universal 
political  and  social  revolution,  anarchy,  and  blood- 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  163 

shed,  compared  with  which  the  Reign  of  Terror 
in  France  was  a  merciful  visitation."  To  escape 
such  a  future,  he  demanded  an  armistice,  to  be 
followed  by  a  friendly  peace  established  through 
foreign  mediation. 

Returning  to  Ohio  after  the  adjournment  of 
Congress,  Vallandigham  spoke  to  a  mass-meeting 
in  a  way  that  was  construed  as  rank  treason 
by  General  Burnside  who  was  in  command  at 
Cincinnati.  Vallandigham  was  arrested,  tried  by 
court  martial,  and  condemned  to  imprisonment. 
There  was  an  immediate  hue  and  cry,  in  conse 
quence  of  which  Burnside,  who  reported  the  affair, 
felt  called  upon  also  to  offer  to  resign.  Lincoln's 
reply  was  characteristic:  "When  I  shall  wish  to 
supersede  you  I  shall  let  you  know.  All  the 
Cabinet  regretted  the  necessity  for  arresting,  for 
instance,  Vallandigham,  some  perhaps  doubting 
there  was  a  real  necessity  for  it;  but  being  done, 
all  were  for  seeing  you  through  with  it. "  Lincoln, 
however,  commuted  the  sentence  to  banishment 
and  had  Vallandigham  sent  through  the  lines  into 
the  Confederacy. 

It  seems  quite  plain  that  the  condemnation  of 
Lincoln  on  this  issue  of  usurpation  was  not  con 
fined  to  the  friends  of  the  Confederacy,  nor  has 


164  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

it  been  confined  to  his  enemies  in  later  days. 
One  of  Lincoln's  most  ardent  admirers,  the  his 
torian  Rhodes,  condemns  his  course  unqualifiedly. 
"There  can  be  no  question,"  he  writes,  "that 
from  the  legal  point  of  view  the  President  should 
have  rescinded  the  sentence  and  released  Val- 
landigham."  Lincoln,  he  adds,  "stands  re 
sponsible  for  the  casting  into  prison  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States  on  orders  as  arbitrary  as 
the  lettres-de-cachet  of  Louis  XIV."  Since  Mr. 
Rhodes,  uncompromising  Unionist,  can  write  as 
he  does  upon  this  issue,  it  is  plain  that  the  op 
position  party  cannot  be  dismissed  as  through  and 
through  disunionist. 

The  trial  of  Vallandigham  made  him  a  martyr 
and  brought  him  the  Democratic  nomination  for 
Governor  of  Ohio.1  His  followers  sought  to  make 
the  issue  of  the  campaign  the  acceptance  or  re 
jection  of  military  despotism.  In  defense  of  his 
course  Lincoln  wrote  two  public  letters  in  which  he 
gave  evidence  of  the  skill  which  he  had  acquired 
as  a  lawyer  before  a  jury  by  the  way  in  which  he 
played  upon  the  emotions  of  his  readers. 

1  Edward  Everett  Hale's  famous  story  The  Man  Without  a  Country, 
though  it  got  into  print  too  late  to  affect  the  election,  was  aimed  at 
Vallandigham.  That  quaint  allegory  on  the  lack  of  patriotism  be 
came  a  temporary  classic. 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  165 

Long  experience  [he  wrote]  has  shown  that  armies  can 
not  be  maintained  unless  desertion  shall  be  punished 
by  the  severe  penalty  of  death.  The  case  requires,  and 
the  law  and  the  Constitution  sanction,  this  punishment. 
Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  deserts, 
while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  in 
duces  him  to  desert?  This  is  none  the  less  injurious 
when  effected  by  getting  a  father,  or  brother,  or  friend 
into  a  public  meeting,  and  there  working  upon  his 
feelings  till  he  is  persuaded  to  write  the  soldier  boy 
that  he  is  fighting  in  a  bad  cause  for  a  wicked  adminis 
tration  and  a  contemptible  government,  too  weak  to 
arrest  and  punish  him  if  he  shall  desert.  I  think  that 
in  such  a  case  to  silence  the  agitator  and  save  the  boy 
is  not  only  constitutional,  but,  withal,  a  great  mercy. 

His  real  argument  may  be  summed  up  in  these 
words  of  his: 

You  ask,  in  substance,  whether  I  really  claim  that  I 
may  override  all  the  guaranteed  rights  of  individuals, 
on  the  plea  of  conserving  the  public  safety  —  when  I 
may  choose  to  say  the  public  safety  requires  it.  This 
question,  divested  of  the  phraseology  calculated  to  re 
present  me  as  struggling  for  an  arbitrary  prerogative, 
is  either  simply  a  question  who  shall  decide,  or  an  af 
firmation  that  nobody  shall  decide,  what  the  public 
safety  does  require  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion. 

The  Constitution  contemplates  the  question  as  likely 
to  occur  for  decision,  but  it  does  not  expressly  declare 
who  is  to  decide  it.  By  necessary  implication,  when 
rebellion  or  invasion  comes,  the  decision  is  to  be  made, 
from  time  to  time;  and  I  think  the  man,  whom  for  the 


166  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

time,  the  people  have  under  the  Constitution,  made  the 
commander-in-chief  of  their  army  and  navy,  is  the  man 
who  holds  the  power  and  bears  the  responsibility  of 
making  it.  If  he  uses  the  power  justly,  the  same  people 
will  probably  justify  him;  if  he  abuses  it,  he  is  in  their 
hands  to  be  dealt  with  by  all  the  modes  they  have 
reserved  to  themselves  in  the  Constitution. 

Lincoln  virtually  appealed  to  the  Northern  peo 
ple  to  secure  efficiency  by  setting  him  momentarily 
above  all  civil  authority.  He  asked  them  in  sub 
stance,  to  interpret  their  Constitution  by  a  show 
of  hands.  No  thoughtful  person  can  doubt  the 
risks  of  such  a  method;  yet  in  Ohio,  in  1863,  the 
great  majority — perhaps  everyone  who  believed  in 
the  war  —  accepted  Lincoln's  position.  Between 
their  traditional  system  of  legal  juries  and  the  new 
system  of  military  tribunals  the  Ohio  voters  made 
their  choice  without  hesitation.  They  rejected 
Vallandigham  and  sustained  the  Lincoln  candidate 
by  a  majority  of  over  a  hundred  thousand.  That 
same  year  in  New  York  the  anti-Lincoln  candidate 
for  Secretary  of  State  was  defeated  by  twenty-nine 
thousand  votes. 

Though  these  elections  in  1863  can  hardly  be 
called  the  turning-point  in  the  history  of  the  Lin 
coln  Government,  yet  it  was  clear  that  the  tide 
of  popularity  which  had  ebbed  so  far  away  from 


THE  RULE  OF  LINCOLN  167 

Lincoln  in  the  autumn  of  1862  was  again  in  the 
flood.  Another  phase  of  his  stormy  course  may  be 
thought  of  as  having  ended.  And  in  accounting 
for  this  turn  of  the  tide  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  between  the  nomination  and  the  defeat  of  a 
Vallandigham  the  bloody  rebellion  in  New  York 
had  taken  place,  Gettysburg  had  been  fought, 
and  Grant  had  captured  Vicksburg.  The  autumn 
of  1863  formed  a  breathing  space  for  the  war  party 
of  the  North. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    CRUCIAL    MATTER 

IT  is  the  custom  of  historians  to  measure  the 
relative  strength  of  North  and  South  chiefly 
in  terms  of  population.  The  North  numbered 
£3,000,000  inhabitants;  the  South,  about  9,000,- 
000,  of  which  the  slave  population  amounted 
to  3,500,000.  But  these  obvious  statistics  only 
partially  indicate  the  real  situation.  Not  what 
one  has,  but  what  one  is  capable  of  using  is,  of 
course,  the  true  measure  of  strength.  If,  in  1861, 
either  side  could  have  struck  swiftly  and  with  all 
its  force,  the  story  of  the  war  would  have  been 
different.  The  question  of  relative  strength  was 
in  reality  a  question  of  munitions.  Both  powers 
were  glaringly  unprepared.  Both  had  instant 
need  of  great  supplies  of  arms  and  ammunition, 
and  both  turned  to  European  manufacturers  for 
aid.  Those  Americans  who,  in  a  later  war,  wished 
to  make  illegal  the  neutral  trade  in  munitions  for- 

168 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  169 

got  that  the  international  right  of  a  belligerent  to 
buy  arms  from  a  neutral  had  prevented  their  own 
destruction  in  1861.  In  the  supreme  American 
crisis,  agents  of  both  North  and  South  hurried  to 
Europe  in  quest  of  munitions.  On  the  Northern 
side  the  work  was  done  chiefly  by  the  three  min 
isters,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  at  London;  William 
L.  Dayton,  at  Paris;  and  Henry  S.  Sanford,  at 
Brussels;  by  an  able  special  agent,  Colonel  George 
L.  Schuyler;  and  by  the  famous  banking-house 
of  Baring  Brothers,  which  one  might  almost  have 
called  the  European  department  of  the  United 
States  Treasury. 

The  eager  solicitude  of  the  War  Department 
over  the  competition  of  the  two  groups  of  agents 
in  Europe  informs  a  number  of  dispatches  that 
are,  today,  precious  admonitions  to  the  heedless 
descendants  of  that  dreadful  time.  As  late  as 
October,  1861,  the  Acting  Secretary  of  War  wrote 
to  Schuyler,  one  of  whose  shipments  had  been 
delayed:  "The  Department  earnestly  hopes  to 
receive  ...  the  12,000  Enfield  rifles  and  the 
remainder  of  the  27,000,  which  you  state  you 
have  purchased,  by  the  earliest  steamer  following. 
Could  you  appreciate  the  circumstances  by  which 
we  are  surrounded,  you  would  readily  understand 


170  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

the  urgent  necessity  there  is  for  the  immediate 
delivery  of  all  the  arms  you  are  authorized  to  pur 
chase.  The  Department  expects  to  hear  that  you 
have  been  able  to  conclude  the  negotiations  for 
the  48,000  rifles  from  the  French  government  ar 
senals.  "  That  the  Confederate  Government  acted 
even  more  promptly  than  the  Union  Government 
appears  from  a  letter  of  Sanford  to  Seward  in 
May:  "I  have  vainly  expected  orders,"  he  com 
plains,  "for  the  purchase  of  arms  for  the  Govern 
ment,  and  am  tempted  to  order  from  Belgium  all 
they  can  send  over  immediately.  .  .  .  Meanwhile 
the  workshops  are  filling  with  orders  from  the 
South.  ...  It  distresses  me  to  think  that  while 
we  are  in  want  of  them,  Southern  money  is  taking 
them  away  to  be  used  against  us." 

At  London,  Adams  took  it  upon  himself  to 
contract  for  arms  in  advance  of  instructions.  He 
wrote  to  Seward:  "Aware  of  the  degree  to  which 
I  exceed  my  authority  in  taking  such  a  step,  no 
thing  but  a  conviction  of  the  need  in  which  the 
country  stands  of  such  assistance  and  the  joint 
opinion  of  all  the  diplomatic  agents  of  the  United 
States  ...  in  Paris,  has  induced  me  to  overcome 
my  scruples."  How  real  was  the  necessity  of 
which  this  able  diplomat  was  so  early  conscious, 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  171 

is  demonstrated  at  every  turn  in  the  papers  of 
the  War  Department.  Witness  this  brief  dispatch 
from  Harrisburg:  "All  ready  to  leave  but  no  arms. 
Governor  not  willing  to  let  us  leave  State  with 
out  them,  as  act  of  Assembly  forbids.  Can  arms 
be  sent  here?"  When  this  appeal  was  made, 
in  December,  1861,  arms  were  pouring  into  the 
country  from  Europe,  and  the  crisis  had  passed. 
But  if  this  appeal  had  been  made  earlier  in  the 
year,  the  inevitable  answer  may  be  guessed  from  a 
dispatch  which  the  Ordnance  Office  sent,  as  late  as 
September,  to  the  authorities  of  West  Virginia,  re 
fusing  to  supply  them  with  arms  because  the  sup 
plies  were  exhausted,  and  adding,  "Every  possible 
exertion  is  being  made  to  obtain  additional  supplies 
by  contract,  by  manufacture,  and  by  purchase,  and 
as  soon  as  they  can  be  procured  by  any  means,  in 
any  way,  they  will  be  supplied." 

Curiously  enough,  not  only  the  Confederacy  but 
various  States  of  the  North  were  more  expedi 
tious  in  this  all-important  matter  than  Cameron 
and  the  War  Department.  Schuyler's  first  dis 
patch  from  London  gives  this  singular  informa 
tion:  "All  private  establishments  in  Birming 
ham  and  London  are  now  working  for  the  States 
of  Ohio,  Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts,  except 


172  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

the  London  Armory,  whose  manufacture  is  sup 
posed  to  go  to  the  Rebels,  but  of  this  last  fact 
I  am  not  positively  informed.  I  am  making  ar 
rangements  to  secure  these  establishments  for  our 
Government,  if  desirable  after  the  present  State 
contracts  expire.  On  the  Continent,  Messrs.  Day 
ton  and  Sanford  .  .  .  have  been  making  con 
tracts  and  agreements  of  various  kinds,  of  which 
you  are  by  this  time  informed. "  Soon  afterward, 
from  Paris,  he  made  a  long  report  detailing  the 
difficulties  of  his  task,  the  limitations  of  the  ex 
isting  munitions  plants  in  Europe,  and  promising 
among  other  things  those  "48,000  rifles  from  the 
French  government  arsenals  "  for  which,  in  the  let 
ter  already  quoted,  the  War  Department  yearned. 
It  was  an  enormous  labor;  and,  strive  as  he  would, 
Schuyler  found  American  mail  continuing  to 
bring  him  such  letters  as  this  from  the  Assistant 
Secretary  of  War  in  October:  "I  notice  with 
much  regret  that  [in  the  latest  consignment]  there 
were  no  guns  sent,  as  it  was  confidently  expected 
that  20,000  would  arrive  by  the  [steamship] 
Fulton,  and  accordingly  arrangements  had  been 
made  to  distribute  them  through  the  different 
States.  Prompt  and  early  shipments  of  guns  are 
desirable.  We  hope  to  hear  by  next  steamer 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  173 

that  you  have  shipped  from  80,000  to  100,000 
stand." 

The  last  word  on  the  problem  of  munitions, 
which  was  so  significant  a  factor  in  the  larger 
problem,  is  the  report  of  the  United  States  Ord 
nance  Office  for  the  first  year  of  the  war.  It 
shows  that  between  April,  1861,  and  June,  1862, 
the  Government  purchased  from  American  manu 
facturers  somewhat  over  30,000  rifles,  and  that 
from  European  makers  it  purchased  726,000. 

From  these  illustrations  it  is  therefore  obvious 
that  the  true  measure  of  the  immediate  strength 
of  the  American  contestants  in  1861  was  the 
extent  of  their  ability  to  supply  themselves  from 
Europe;  and  this,  stated  more  concretely,  became 
the  question  as  to  which  was  the  better  able  to 
keep  its  ports  open  and  receive  the  absolutely 
essential  European  aid.  Lincoln  showed  his  clear 
realization  of  the  situation  when  he  issued, 
immediately  after  the  first  call  for  volunteers,  a 
proclamation  blockading  the  Southern  coasts. 
Whether  the  Northern  people  at  the  time  appre 
ciated  the  significance  of  this  order  is  a  question. 
Amid  the  wild  and  vain  clamor  of  the  multitude 
in  1861,  with  its  conventional  and  old-fashioned 
notion  of  war  as  a  thing  of  trumpets  and  glittering 


174  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

armies,  the  North  seems  wholly  to  have  ignored 
its  fleet;  and  yet  in  the  beginning  this  resource 
was  its  only  strength. 

The  fleet  was  small,  to  be  sure,  but  its  task  was 
at  first  also  small.  There  were  few  Southern  ports 
which  were  doing  a  regular  business  with  Europe, 
and  to  close  these  was  not  difficult.  As  other 
ports  opened  and  the  task  of  blockade  grew,  the 
Northern  navy  also  increased.  Within  a  few 
months,  to  the  few  observers  who  did  not  lose  their 
heads,  it  was  plain  that  the  North  had  won  the 
first  great  contest  of  the  war.  It  had  so  hampered 
Southern  trade  that  Lincoln's  advantage  in  arming 
the  North  from  Europe  was  ten  to  one.  At  the 
very  time  when  detractors  of  Lincoln  were  hysteri 
cal  over  the  removal  of  Fremont,  when  Grimes 
wrote  to  Fessenden  that  the  country  was  going  to 
the  dogs  as  fast  as  imbecility  could  carry  it,  this 
great  achievement  had  quietly  taken  place.  An 
expedition  sailing  in  August  from  Fortress  Monroe 
seized  the  forts  which  commanded  Hatteras  Inlet 
off  the  coast  of  North  Carolina.  In  November, 
Commander  Dupont,  U.  S.  N.,  seized  Port  Royal, 
one  of  the  best  harbors  on  the  coast  of  South 
Carolina,  and  established  there  a  naval  base. 
Thenceforth,  while  the  open  Northern  ports  re- 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  175 

ceived  European  munitions  without  hindrance,  it 
was  a  risky  business  getting  munitions  into  the 
ports  of  the  South.  Only  the  boldest  traders 
would  attempt  to  "run  the  blockade,"  to  evade 
the  Federal  patrol  ships  by  night  and  run  into  a 
Southern  port. 

However,  for  one  moment  in  the  autumn  of 
1861,  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  masterful  work  of  the 
Northern  navy  would  be  undone  by  the  North 
ern  people  themselves  in  backing  up  the  rashness 
of  Captain  Charles  Wilkes,  of  the  war-ship  San 
Jacinto.  On  the  high  seas  he  overhauled  the  Brit 
ish  mail  steamer,  Trent.  Aboard  her  were  two 
Confederate  diplomatic  agents,  James  M.  Mason 
and  John  Slidell,  who  had  run  the  blockade  from 
Charleston  to  Havana  and  were  now  on  their  way 
to  England.  Wilkes  took  off  the  two  Confederates 
as  prisoners  of  war.  The  crowd  in  the  North  went 
wild.  "We  do  not  believe,"  said  the  New  York 
Times,  "that  the  American  heart  ever  thrilled 
with  more  sincere  delight." 

The  intemperate  joy  of  the  crowd  over  the  rash 
ness  of  Wilkes  was  due  in  part  to  a  feeling  of 
bitterness  against  the  British  Government.  In 
May,  1861,  the  Queen  had  issued  a  proclamation 
of  neutrality,  whose  justification  in  international 


176  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

law  was  hotly  debated  at  the  time  and  was  gen 
erally  denied  by  Northerners.  England  was  the 
great  cotton  market  of  the  world.  To  the  ex 
cited  Northern  mind,  in  1861,  there  could  be  but 
one  explanation  of  England's  action:  a  partisan 
desire  to  serve  the  South,  to  break  up  the  block 
ade,  and  to  secure  cotton.  Whether  such  was  the 
real  purpose  of  the  ministry  then  in  power  is  now 
doubted;  but  at  that  time  it  was  the  beginning  of 
a  sharp  contention  between  the  two  Governments. 
The  Trent  affair  naturally  increased  the  tension. 
So  keen  was  the  indignation  of  all  classes  of  Eng 
lishmen  that  it  seemed,  for  a  moment,  as  if  the 
next  step  would  be  war. 

In  America,  the  prompt  demand  for  the  release 
of  Mason  and  Slidell  was  met,  at  first,  in  a  spirit 
equally  bellicose.  Fortunately  there  were  cool  and 
clear  heads  that  at  once  condemned  Wilkes's  action 
as  a  gross  breach  of  international  law.  Promin 
ent  among  these  was  Sumner.  The  American  Gov 
ernment,  however,  admitted  the  justice  of  the  Brit 
ish  demand  and  the  envoys  were  released. 

Relations  with  the  United  States  now  became  a 
burning  issue  in  English  politics.  There  were  three 
distinct  groups  in  Parliament.  The  representa 
tives  of  the  aristocracy,  whether  Liberals  or  Con- 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  177 

servatives,  in  the  main  sympathized  with  the 
South.  So  did  most  of  the  large  manufacturers 
whose  business  interests  were  affected  by  cotton. 
Great  bitterness  grew  up  among  the  Northerners 
against  both  these  groups,  partly  because  in  the 
past  many  of  their  members  had  condemned  slav 
ery  and  had  said  scornful  things  about  America  for 
tolerating  it.  To  these  Northerners  the  English 
men  replied  that  Lincoln  himself  had  declared  the 
war  was  not  over  slavery;  that  it  was  an  ordinary 
civil  war  not  involving  moral  issues.  Nevertheless, 
the  third  Parliamentary  group  insisted  that  the 
American  war,  no  matter  what  the  motives  of 
the  participants,  would,  in  the  event  of  a  North 
ern  victory,  bring  about  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
whereas,  if  the  South  won,  the  result  would  be  the 
perpetuation  of  slavery.  This  third  group,  there 
fore,  threw  all  its  weight  on  the  side  of  the  North. 
In  this  group  Lincoln  recognized  his  allies,  and 
their  cause  he  identified  with  his  own  in  his  letter 
to  English  workmen  which  was  quoted  in  the  pre 
vious  chapter.  Their  leaders  in  Parliament  were 
Richard  Cobden,  W.  E.  Forster.  and  John  Bright. 
All  these  groups  were  represented  in  the  Liberal 
party,  which,  for  the  moment,  was  in  power. 
In  the  Cabinet  itself  there  was  a  "Northern" 


178  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

and  a  "Southern"  faction.  Then,  too,  there  were 
some  who  sympathized  with  the  North  but  who 
felt  that  its  cause  was  hopeless  —  so  little  did 
they  understand  the  relative  strength  of  the  two 
sections  —  and  who  felt  that  the  war  was  a  ter 
rible  proof  of  the  uselessness  of  mere  suffering. 
Gladstone,  in  later  days,  wished  to  be  thought 
of  as  having  been  one  of  these,  though  at  the 
time,  a  famous  utterance  of  his  was  construed 
in  the  North  as  a  declaration  of  hostility.  To 
a  great  audience  at  Newcastle  he  said  in  Octo 
ber,  1862:  "We  may  have  our  own  opinions 
about  slavery;  we  may  be  for  or  against  the 
South;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Jefferson  Davis 
and  other  leaders  of  the  South  have  made  an 
army;  they  are  making,  it  appears,  a  navy;  and 
they  have  made,  what  is  more  than  either  — 
they  have  made  a  nation." 

The  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Palmerston,  wished  to 
intervene  in  the  American  war  and  bring  about 
an  amicable  separation  into  two  countries,  and 
so,  apparently,  did  the  Foreign  Secretary,  Lord 
John  Russell.  Recently,  the  American  minister 
had  vainly  protested  against  the  sailing  of  a  ship 
known  as  290  which  was  being  equipped  at  Liver 
pool  presumably  for  the  service  of  the  Confederacy, 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  179 

and  which  became  the  famous  Alabama.  For  two 
years  it  roved  the  ocean  destroying  Northern 
commerce,  and  not  until  it  was  sunk  at  last  in  a 
battle  with  the  U.  S.  S.  Kearsarge  did  all  the  mari 
time  interests  of  the  North  breathe  again  freely. 
In  time  and  as  a  result  of  arbitration,  England 
paid  for  the  ships  sunk  by  the  Alabama.  But  in 
1862,  the  protests  of  the  American  minister  fell  on 
deaf  ears. 

It  must  be  added  that  the  sailing  of  the  Alabama 
from  Liverpool  was  due  probably  to  the  careless 
ness  of  British  officials  rather  than  to  deliberate 
purpose.  And  yet  the  fact  is  clear  that  about 
the  first  of  October,  1862,  the  British  ministry  was 
on  the  verge  of  intervening  to  secure  recognition 
of  the  independence  of  the  Southern  confederacy. 
The  chief  motive  pressing  them  forward  was  the 
distress  in  England  caused  by  the  lack  of  cotton 
which  resulted  from  the  American  blockade.  In 

1860,  the  South  had  exported  615,000  bales;  in 

1861,  only  10,127  bales.    In  1862  half  the  spindles 
of  Manchester  were  idle;  the  workmen  were  out  of 
employment;  the  owners  were  without  dividends. 
It  was  chiefly  by  these  manufacturing  capitalists 
that  pressure  was  put  upon  the  ministry,  and  it 
was  in  the  manufacturing  district  that  Gladstone, 


180  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

thinking  the  Government  was  likely  to  intervene, 
made  his  allusion  to  the  South  as  a  nation. 

Meanwhile  the  Emperor  of  the  French  was  con 
sidering  a  proposal  to  England  and  Russia  to  join 
with  him  in  mediation  between  the  American  bel 
ligerents.  On  October  28,  1862,  Napoleon  III. 
gave  audience  to  the  Confederate  envoy  at  Paris, 
discussed  the  Southern  cause  in  the  most  friendly 
manner,  questioned  him  upon  the  Maryland  cam 
paign,  plainly  indicated  his  purpose  to  attempt 
intervention,  and  at  parting  cordially  shook  hands 
with  him.  Within  a  few  days  the  Emperor  made 
good  his  implied  promise. 

The  month  of  November,  1862,  is  one  of  the 
turning-points  in  American  foreign  relations.  Both 
Russia  and  England  rejected  France's  proposal. 
The  motive  usually  assigned  to  the  Emperor 
Alexander  is  his  hatred  of  everything  associated 
with  slavery.  His  own  most  famous  action  was 
the  liberation  of  the  Russian  serfs.  The  motives 
of  the  British  ministry,  however,  appear  more 
problematical. 

Mr.  Rhodes  thinks  he  can  discern  evidence  that 
Adams  communicated  indirectly  to  Palmerston 
the  contents  of  a  dispatch  from  Seward  which 
indicated  that  the  United  States  would  accept 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  181 

war  rather  than  mediation.  Palmerston  had  kept 
his  eyes  upon  the  Maryland  campaign,  and  Lee's 
withdrawal  did  not  increase  his  confidence  in  the 
strength  of  the  South.  Lord  Russell,  two  months 
previous,  had  flatly  told  the  Confederate  envoy  at 
London  that  the  South  need  not  hope  for  recogni 
tion  unless  it  could  establish  itself  without  aid, 
and  that  "the  fluctuating  events  of  the  war,  the 
alternation  of  defeat  and  victory,"  composed  such 
a  contradictory  situation  that  "Her  Majesty's 
Government  are  still  determined  to  wait." 

Perhaps  the  veiled  American  warning  —  assum 
ing  it  was  conveyed  to  Palmerston,  which  seems 
highly  probable  —  was  not  the  only  diplomatic 
innuendo  of  the  autumn  of  1862  that  has  escaped 
the  pages  of  history.  Slidell  at  Paris,  putting 
together  the  statements  of  the  British  Ambassa 
dor  and  those  of  the  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  found  in  them  contradictions  as  to  what 
was  going  on  between  the  two  governments  in  re 
lation  to  America.  He  took  a  hand  by  attempt 
ing  to  inspire  M.  Drouyn  de  L'huys  with  distrust 
of  England,  telling  him  he  "had  seen  ...  a  letter 
from  a  leading  member  of  the  British  Cabinet  .  .  . 
in  which  he  very  plainly  insinuated  that  France 
was  playing  an  unfair  game,"  trying  to  use  Eng- 


182  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

land  as  Napoleon's  catspaw.  Among  the  many 
motives  that  may  well  have  animated  the  Palmer- 
ston  Government  in  its  waiting  policy,  a  distrust 
of  Napoleon  deserves  to  be  considered. 

It  is  scarcely  rash,  however,  to  find  the  chief 
motive  in  home  politics.  The  impetuous  Glad 
stone  at  Newcastle  lost  his  head  and  spoke  too 
soon.  The  most  serious  effect  of  his  premature 
utterance  was  the  prompt  reaction  of  the  "North 
ern  party"  in  the  Cabinet  and  in  the  country. 
Whatever  Palmerston's  secret  desires  were,  he 
was  not  prepared  to  take  the  high  hand,  and  he 
therefore  permitted  other  members  of  the  Cabinet 
to  state  in  public  that  Gladstone  had  been  mis 
understood.  In  an  interview  with  Adams,  Lord 
Russell,  "whilst  endeavoring  to  excuse  Mr. 
Gladstone,"  assured  him  that  "the  policy  of  the 
Government  was  to  adhere  to  a  strict  neutrality 
and  leave  the  struggle  to  settle  itself."  In  the  last 
analysis,  the  Northern  party  in  England  was  gain 
ing  ground.  The  news  from  America,  possibly, 
and  Gladstone's  rashness,  certainly,  roused  it  to 
increased  activity.  Palmerston,  whose  tenure  of 
power  was  none  too  secure,  dared  not  risk  a  break 
that  might  carry  the  disaffected  into  the  ranks  of 
the  Opposition. 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  183 

From  this  time  forward  the  North  rapidly  grew 
in  favor  in  British  public  opinion,  and  its  influence 
upon  the  Government  speedily  increased. 

Says  Lord  Charnwood  in  his  recent  life  of 
Lincoln:  "The  battle  of  Antietam  was  followed 
within  five  days  by  an  event  which  made  it  im 
possible  for  any  government  of  this  country  to 
take  action  unfriendly  to  the  North."  He  refers 
of  course  to  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
which  was  issued  on  September  23,  1862.  Lord 
Charnwood's  remark  may  be  too  dramatic.  But 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Emancipation  Pro 
clamation  was  the  turning-point  in  Lincoln's  for 
eign  policy;  and  because  of  it,  his  friends  in  Eng 
land  eventually  forced  the  Government  to  play  in 
to  his  hands,  and  so  frustrated  Napoleon's  scheme 
for  intervention.  Consequently  Lincoln  was  able 
to  maintain  the  blockade  by  means  of  which  the 
South  was  strangled.  Thus,  at  bottom,  the  crucial 
matter  was  Emancipation. 

Lincoln's  policy  with  regard  to  slavery  passed 
through  three  distinct  stages.  As  we  have  seen,  he 
proposed,  at  first,  to  pledge  the  Government  not  to 
interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  then 
existed.  This  was  his  maximum  of  compromise. 
He  would  not  agree  to  permitting  its  extension 


184  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

into  new  territory.  He  maintained  this  position 
through  1861,  when  it  was  made  an  accusation 
against  him  by  the  Abolitionists  and  contributed 
to  the  ebb  of  his  popularity.  It  also  played  a 
great  part  in  the  episode  of  Fremont.  At  a  crucial 
moment  in  Fremont's  career,  when  his  hold  upon 
popularity  seemed  precarious,  he  set  at  naught 
the  policy  of  the  President  and  issued  an  order 
(August  30,  1861),  which  confiscated  all  property 
and  slaves  of  those  who  were  in  arms  against  the 
United  States  or  actively  aiding  the  enemy,  and 
which  created  a  "bureau  of  abolition."  Whether 
Fremont  was  acting  from  conviction  or  "playing 
politics"  may  be  left  to  his  biographers.  In  a 
most  tactful  letter  Lincoln  asked  him  to  modify 
the  order  so  as  to  conform  to  the  Confiscation  Act 
of  Congress;  and  when  Fremont  proved  obdurate, 
Lincoln  ordered  him  to  do  so.  In  the  outcry 
against  Lincoln  when  Fremont  was  at  last  removed, 
the  Abolitionists  rang  the  changes  on  this  reversal 
of  his  policy  of  military  abolition. 

Another  Federal  General,  Benjamin  F.  Butler, 
in  the  course  of  1861,  also  raised  the  issue,  though 
not  in  the  bold  fashion  of  Fremont.  Runaway 
slaves  came  to  his  camp  on  the  Virginia  coast,  and 
he  refused  to  surrender  them  to  the  owners.  He 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  185 

took  the  ground  that,  as  they  had  probably  been 
used  in  building  Confederate  fortifications,  they 
might  be  considered  contraband  of  war.  He  was 
sustained  by  Congress,  which  passed  what  is  com 
monly  called  the  First  Confiscation  Act  providing 
that  slaves  used  by  Confederate  armies  in  mili 
tary  labor  should,  if  captured,  be  "forfeited"  — 
which  of  course  meant  that  they  should  be  set 
free.  But  this  did  not  settle  what  should  be  done 
with  runaways  whose  masters,  though  residents  of 
seceded  States,  were  loyal  to  the  Union.  The  War 
Department  decided  that  they  should  be  held  until 
the  end  of  the  war,  when  probably  there  would  be 
made  "just  compensation  to  loyal  masters." 

This  first  stage  of  Lincoln's  policy  rested  upon 
the  hope  that  the  Union  might  be  restored  with 
out  prolonged  war.  He  abandoned  this  hope  about 
the  end  of  the  year.  Thereupon,  his  policy  entered 
its  second  stage.  In  the  spring  of  1862  he  for 
mulated  a  plan  for  gradual  emancipation  with 
compensation.  The  slaves  of  Maryland,  Delaware, 
Kentucky,  Missouri,  and  the  District  of  Colum 
bia  were  to  be  purchased  at  the  rate  of  $400  each, 
thus  involving  a  total  expenditure  of  $173,000,- 
000.  Although  Congress  adopted  the  joint  resolu 
tion  recommended  by  the  President,  the  "border 


186  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

States  "  would  not  accept  the  plan.  But  Congress, 
by  virtue  of  its  plenary  power,  freed  the  slaves  by 
purchase  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  pro 
hibited  slavery  in  all  the  territories  of  the  United 
States. 

During  the  second  stage  of  his  policy  Lincoln 
again  had  to  reverse  the  action  of  an  unruly 
general.  The  Federal  forces  operating  from  their 
base  at  Port  Royal  had  occupied  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  Carolina  coast.  General  Hunter  is 
sued  an  order  freeing  all  the  slaves  in  South  Caro 
lina,  Georgia,  and  Florida.  In  countermanding 
the  order,  Lincoln  made  another  futile  appeal  to 
the  people  of  the  border  States  to  adopt  some  plan 
of  compensated  emancipation. 

"I  do  not  argue,"  he  said;  "I  beseech  you  to 
make  arguments  for  yourselves.  You  cannot,  if 
you  would  be  blind  to  the  signs  of  the  times.  I 
beg  of  you  a  calm  and  enlarged  consideration  of 
them,  ranging,  if  it  may  be,  far  above  personal  and 
partisan  politics.  This  proposal  makes  common 
cause  for  a  common  object,  casting  no  reproaches 
upon  any.  It  acts  not  the  Pharisee.  The  change 
it  contemplates  would  come  gently  as  the  dews  of 
heaven,  not  rending  or  wrecking  anything.  Will 
you  not  embrace  it?  So  much  good  has  not  been 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  187 

done  by  one  effort  in  all  past  time,  as  in  the 
providence  of  God  it  is  now  your  high  privilege 
to  do.  May  the  vast  future  not  have  to  lament 
that  you  neglected  it. " 

This  persuasive  attitude  and  reluctance  to  force 
the  issue  had  greatly  displeased  the  Abolitionists. 
Their  most  gifted  orator,  Wendell  Phillips,  reviled 
Lincoln  with  all  the  power  of  his  literary  genius, 
and  with  a  fury  that  might  be  called  malevolent. 
Meanwhile,  a  Second  Confiscation  Act  proclaimed 
freedom  for  the  slaves  of  all  those  who  supported 
the  Confederate  Government.  Horace  Greeley 
now  published  in  the  New  York  Tribune  an  edito 
rial  entitled,  "The  Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions." 
He  denounced  Lincoln's  treatment  of  Fremont  and 
Hunter  and  demanded  radical  action.  Lincoln  re 
plied  in  a  letter  now  famous.  "I  would  save  the 
Union,"  said  he,  "I  would  save  it  the  shortest 
way  under  the  Constitution.  ...  If  I  could  save 
the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do 
it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and 
leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What 
I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  be 
cause  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union;  and 
what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe 
it  would  help  to  save  the  Union." 


188  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

However,  at  the  very  time  when  he  wrote  this 
remarkable  letter,  he  had  in  his  own  mind  entered 
upon  the  third  stage  of  his  policy.  He  had  even 
then  discussed  with  his  Cabinet  an  announcement 
favoring  general  emancipation.  The  time  did  not 
seem  to  them  ripe.  It  was  decided  to  wait  until  a 
Federal  victory  should  save  the  announcement 
from  appearing  to  be  a  cry  of  desperation.  An- 
tietam,  which  the  North  interpreted  as  a  victory, 
gave  Lincoln  his  opportunity. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  applied  only 
to  the  States  in  arms  against  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  Such  States  were  given  three  months  in 
which  to  return  to  the  Union.  Thereafter,  if  they 
did  not  return,  their  slaves  would  be  regarded  by 
that  Government  as  free.  No  distinction  was  made 
between  slaves  owned  by  supporters  of  the  Con 
federacy  and  those  whose  owners  were  in  opposi 
tion  to  it.  The  Proclamation  had  no  bearing  on 
those  slave  States  which  had  not  seceded.  Need 
less  to  add,  no  seceded  State  returned,  and  a 
second  Proclamation  making  their  slaves  theoreti 
cally  free  was  in  due  time  issued  on  the  first  of 
January,  1863. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  radical  change 
of  policy  was  made  in  September,  1862.  We 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  189 

have  already  heard  of  the  elections  which  took 
place  soon  after  —  those  elections  which  mark 
perhaps  the  lowest  ebb  of  Lincoln's  popularity, 
when  Seymour  was  elected  Governor  of  New 
York,  and  the  peace  party  gained  over  thirty 
seats  in  Congress.  It  is  a  question  whether,  as 
a  purely  domestic  measure,  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  was  not,  for  the  time,  an  injury 
to  the  Lincoln  Government.  And  yet  it  was  the 
real  turning-point  in  the  fortunes  of  the  North. 
It  was  the  central  fact  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
blockade. 

In  England  at  this  time  the  cotton  famine  was 
at  its  height.  Nearly  a  million  people  in  the 
manufacturing  districts  were  wholly  dependent 
upon  charity.  This  result  of  the  blockade  had 
been  foreseen  by  the  Confederate  Government 
which  was  confident  that  the  distress  of  England's 
working  people  would  compel  the  English  ministry 
to  intervene  and  break  the  blockade.  The  em 
ployers  in  England  whose  loss  was  wholly  finan 
cial,  did  as  the  Confederates  hoped  they  would  do. 
The  workmen,  however,  took  a  different  course. 
Schooled  by  a  number  of  able  debaters,  they  fell 
into  line  with  that  third  group  of  political  leaders 
who  saw  in  the  victory  of  the  North,  whatever 


190  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

its  motives,  the  eventual  extinction  of  slavery. 
To  these  people,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
gave  a  definite  programme.  It  was  now,  the  lead 
ers  argued,  no  longer  a  question  of  eventual  ef 
fect;  the  North  had  proclaimed  a  motive  and 
that  motive  was  the  extinction  of  slavery.  Great 
numbers  of  Englishmen  of  all  classes  who  had 
hitherto  held  back  from  supporting  Cobden  and 
Bright  now  ranged  themselves  on  their  side.  Ad 
dresses  of  praise  and  sympathy  "began  to  pour  in 
to  the  Legation  of  the  United  States  in  a  steady 
and  ever  swelling  stream. "  An  immense  popular 
demonstration  took  place  at  Exeter  Hall.  Cob- 
den,  writing  to  Sumner,  described  the  new  situa 
tion  in  British  politics,  in  a  letter  amounting  to  an 
assurance  that  the  Government  never  again  would 
attempt  to  resist  the  popular  pressure  in  favor  of 
the  North. 

On  the  last  day  of  1862  a  meeting  of  working- 
men  at  Manchester,  where  the  cotton  famine  was 
causing  untold  misery,  adopted  one  of  those  New 
Year  greetings  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln's  reply  ex 
pressed  with  his  usual  directness  his  own  view 
of  the  sympathetic  relation  that  had  been  estab 
lished  between  the  democratic  classes  of  the  two 
countries: 


THE  CRUCIAL  MATTER  191 

I  know  and  deeply  deplore  the  sufferings  which  the 
workingmen  at  Manchester,  and  in  all  Europe,  are 
called  to  endure  in  this  crisis.  It  has  been  often  and 
studiously  represented  that  the  attempt  to  overthrow 
this  Government,  which  was  built  upon  the  foundation 
of  human  rights,  and  to  substitute  for  it  one  which 
should  rest  exclusively  on  the  basis  of  human  slavery, 
was  likely  to  obtain  the  favor  of  Europe.  Through  the 
action  of  our  disloyal  citizens,  the  workingmen  of 
Europe  have  been  subjected  to  severe  trials,  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  their  sanction  to  that  attempt. 
Under  the  circumstances,  I  cannot  but  regard  your 
decisive  utterances  upon  the  question  as  an  instance 
of  sublime  Christian  heroism  which  has  not  been  sur 
passed  in  any  age  or  in  any  country.  It  is  indeed  an 
energetic  and  reinspiring  assurance  of  the  inherent 
power  of  truth,  and  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  justice, 
humanity,  and  freedom.  I  do  not  doubt  that  the 
sentiments  you  have  expressed  will  be  sustained  by 
your  great  nation;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  assuring  you  that  they  will  excite  admi 
ration,  esteem,  and  the  most  reciprocal  feelings  of 
friendship  among  the  American  people.  I  hail  this  in 
terchange  of  sentiment,  therefore,  as  an  augury  that 
whatever  else  may  happen,  whatever  misfortune  may 
befall  your  country  or  my  own,  the  peace  and  friend 
ship  which  now  exists  between  the  two  nations  will  be, 
as  it  shall  be  my  desire  to  make  them,  perpetual. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY 

THOUGH  the  defeat  of  the  Democrats  at  the  polls 
in  1863  and  the  now  definitely  friendly  attitude  of 
England  had  done  much  to  secure  the  stability  of 
the  Lincoln  Government,  this  success  was  due  in 
part  to  a  figure  which  now  comes  to  the  front 
and  deserves  attentive  consideration.  Indeed  the 
work  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  forms  a  bridge,  as  one  might  say,  be 
tween  the  first  and  second  phases  of  Lincoln's 
administration. 

The  interesting  Englishman  who  is  the  latest 
biographer  of  Lincoln  says  of  Chase:  "Unfor 
tunately,  this  imposing  person  was  a  sneak." 
But  is  Lord  Charnwood  justified  in  that  surpris 
ing  characterization?  He  finds  support  in  the 
testimony  of  Secretary  Welles,  who  calls  Chase, 
"artful  dodger,  unstable,  and  unreliable."  And 
yet  there  is  another  side,  for  it  is  the  conven- 

192 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  193 

tional  thing  in  America  to  call  him  our  greatest 
finance  minister  since  Hamilton,  and  even  a  con 
spicuous  enemy  said  of  him,  at  a  crucial  mo 
ment,  that  his  course  established  his  character 
"as  an  honest  and  frank  man." 

Taking  these  contradictory  estimates  as  hints 
of  a  contradiction  in  the  man,  we  are  forced  to 
the  conclusion  that  Chase  was  a  professional  in 
politics  and  an  amateur  in  finance.  Perhaps  here 
in  is  the  whole  explanation  of  the  two  charac 
teristics  of  his  financial  policy  —  his  reluctance 
to  lay  taxes,  and  his  faith  in  loans.  His  two  eyes 
did  not  see  things  alike.  One  was  really  trying 
to  make  out  the  orthodox  path  of  finance;  the 
other  was  peering  along  the  more  devious  road  of 
popular  caprice. 

The  opening  of  the  war  caught  the  Treasury,  as 
it  caught  all  branches  of  the  Government,  utterly 
unprepared.  Between  April  and  July,  1861,  Chase 
had  to  borrow  what  he  could.  When  Congress 
met  in  July,  his  real  career  as  director  of  financial 
policy  began  —  or,  as  his  enemies  think,  failed  to 
begin.  At  least,  he  failed  to  urge  upon  Congress 
the  need  of  new  taxes  and  appeared  satisfied  with 
himself  asking  for  an  issue  of  $240,000,000  in 
bonds  bearing  not  less  than  seven  per  cent  interest. 

13 


194  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Congress  voted  to  give  him  $250,000,000  of  which 
$50,000,000  might  be  interest-bearing  treasury 
notes;  made  slight  increases  in  duties;  and  pre 
pared  for  excise  and  direct  taxation  the  following 
year.  Later  in  the  year  Congress  laid  a  three 
per  cent  tax  on  all  incomes  in  excess  of  $800. 

When  Congress  reassembled  in  December,  1861, 
expenditures  were  racing  ahead  of  receipts,  and 
there  was  a  deficit  of  $143,000,000.  It  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  this  month  was  a  time  of  in 
tense  excitability  and  of  nervous  reaction.  Fre 
mont  had  lately  been  removed,  and  the  attack 
on  Cameron  had  begun.  At  this  crucial  moment 
the  situation  was  made  still  more  alarming  by 
the  action  of  the  New  York  banks,  followed  by 
all  other  banks,  in  suspending  specie  payments. 
They  laid  the  responsibility  upon  Chase.  A  syn 
dicate  of  banks  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  Phila 
delphia  had  come  to  the  aid  of  the  Government, 
but  when  they  took  up  government  bonds,  Chase 
had  required  them  to  pay  the  full  value  cash 
down,  though  they  had  asked  permission  to  hold 
the  money  on  deposit  and  to  pay  it  as  needed 
on  requisition  by  the  Government.  Furthermore, 
in  spite  of  their  protest,  Chase  issued  treasury 
notes,  which  the  banks  had  to  receive  from  their 


GIDEOX  WELLES 
Photograph  by  Brady. 


XALMOX  P.  CHASE 
Photograph  by  Brady. 


194  LINCOLN  ANP  THF  C.VION 

Congress  voted  to  give  him. $250 ,000.000  of  which 
$30,000,000   might   be   interest  4 
notes:  made  slight  increases  in  and  pre 

pared  for  excise  and  direct  taxation, 
vear.     Later  in  the  year  Congress  L&ki 


When  Congress 
expenditures   were 

there  was  a  deficit  of  $143,000,000.    It  im 
be  forgotten  that  this  month  was  a  time  of    t, 
tense  excitability  and  of  nervous  reaction.    Fre 
mont  had  lately  been  removed,  and  the  attack 
on  Cameron  had  begun.    At  this  crucial  momenl 
the  situation  was  made  still  more  alarming  by 
the  action  of  the  New  York  banks,  followed  by 
all  other  banks,  in  suspending  specie  payments. 
They  laid  the  responsibility  upon  Chase.    A  syr» 
dicate  of  banks  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  Phila 
delphia  had  come  to  the  aid  of  t 
but  when  they  took  up  gov«*nmi** 
had  required  them  to  pay   ib    fttJS  value  cash 
down,  though  they  had  askad  permission  to  hold 
the  money  on  dcuosii  -*y  it  as  needed 

on  requisition  by  the  Gov? 

in   spite  of  tht*™BV'^(  'q''T       »se  issued  treasury 
. ,  which  the  bank*  i.t*d  to  receive  from  their 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  195 

depositors,  who  nevertheless  continued  to  demand 
specie.  On  January  1,  1862,  the  banks  owed 
$459,000,000  and  had  in  specie  only  $87,000,000. 
Chase  defended  his  course  by  saying  that  the  fi 
nancial  crisis  was  not  due  to  his  policy  —  or  lack 
of  policy,  as  it  would  now  seem  —  but  to  a  general 
loss  of  faith  in  the  outcome  of  the  war. 

There  now  arose  a  moral  crisis  for  this  "imposing 
person"  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  —  a 
crisis  with  regard  to  which  there  are  still  differ 
ences  of  opinion.  While  he  faced  his  problem 
silently,  the  Committee  on  Ways  and  Means  in 
the  House  took  the  matter  in  hand.  Its  solution 
was  an  old  one  which  all  sound  theorists  on 
finance  unite  in  condemning — the  issue  of  irre 
deemable  paper  money.  And  what  did  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  do?  Previously,  as  Governor 
of  Ohio,  he  had  denounced  paper  money  as,  in 
effect,  a  fraud  upon  society.  Long  after,  when 
the  tide  of  fortune  had  landed  him  in  the  high 
place  of  Supreme  Justice,  he  returned  to  this  view 
and  condemned  as  unconstitutional  the  law  of 
1862  establishing  a  system  of  paper  money.  But 
at  the  time  when  that  law  was  passed  Chase, 
though  he  went  through  the  form  of  protesting, 
soon  acquiesced.  Before  long  he  was  asking  Con- 


196  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

gress  to  allow  a  further  issue  of  what  he  had  pre 
viously  called  "fraudulent"  money. 

The  answer  to  the  question  whether  Chase 
should  have  stuck  to  his  principles  and  resigned 
rather  than  acquiesce  in  the  paper  money  legisla 
tion  turns  on  that  other  question  —  how  were  the 
politician  and  the  financier  related  in  his  make-up? 

Before  Congress  and  the  Secretary  had  finished, 
$450,000,000  were  issued.  Prices  naturally  rose, 
and  there  was  speculation  in  gold.  Even  before 
the  first  issue  of  paper  money,  the  treasury  notes 
had  been  slightly  below  par.  In  January,  1863, 
a  hundred  dollars  in  paper  would  bring,  in  New 
York,  only  $69.00  in  gold;  a  year  later,  after  falling, 
rising,  and  falling  again,  the  value  was  $64.00;  in 
July  and  August,  1864,  it  was  at  its  lowest,  $39.00; 
when  the  war  closed,  it  had  risen  to  $67.00. 
There  was  powerful  protest  against  the  legislation 
responsible  for  such  a  condition  of  affairs.  Jus 
tin  Morrill,  the  author  of  the  Morrill  tariff,  said, 
"I  would  as  soon  provide  Chinese  wooden  guns 
for  the  army  as  paper  money  alone  for  the  army. 
It  will  be  a  breach  of  public  faith.  It  will  injure 
creditors;  it  will  increase  prices;  it  will  increase 
many  fold  the  cost  of  the  war."  Recent  students 
agree,  in  the  main,  that  his  prophecies  were  fill- 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  197 

filled;  and  a  common  estimate  of  the  probable 
increase  in  the  cost  of  the  war  through  the  use 
of  paper  money  and  the  consequent  inflation  of 
prices  is  $600,000,000. 

There  was  much  more  financial  legislation  in 
1862;  but  Chase  continued  to  stand  aside  and 
allow  Congress  the  lead  in  establishing  an  excise 
law,  an  increase  in  the  income  tax,  and  a  higher 
tariff  —  the  last  of  which  was  necessitated  by  the 
excise  law  which  has  been  described  as  a  bill 
"that  taxed  everything."  To  enable  American 
manufacturers  to  bear  the  excise  duties  levied 
upon  their  business,  protection  was  evoked  to 
secure  them  the  possession  of  their  field  by  ex 
cluding  foreign  competition.  All  these  taxes,  how 
ever,  produced  but  a  fraction  of  the  Government's 
revenue.  Borrowing,  the  favorite  method  of  the 
Secretary,  was  accepted  by  Congress  as  the  main 
resource.  It  is  computed  that  by  means  of  taxa 
tion  there  was  raised  in  the  course  of  the  war 
$667,163,247.00,  while  during  the  same  period  the 
Government  borrowed  $2,621,916,786.00. 

Whatever  else  he  may  think  of  Chase,  no  one 
denies  that  in  1862  he  had  other  interests  besides 
finance.  Lincoln's  Cabinet  in  those  days  was  far 
from  an  harmonious  body.  All  through  its  history 


198  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

there  was  a  Chase  faction  and  a  Seward  faction. 
The  former  had  behind  them  the  Radical  Repub 
licans,  while  the  latter  relied  upon  the  support  of 
the  moderates.  This  division  in  the  Republican 
party  runs  deep  through  the  politics  of  the  time. 
There  seems  to  be  good  reason  to  think  that  Chase 
was  not  taken  by  surprise  when  his  radical  allies 
in  Congress,  in  December,  1862,  demanded  of  Lin 
coln  the  removal  of  Seward.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  the  elections  of  the  autumn  of  1862 
had  gone  against  Lincoln.  At  this  moment  of 
dismay,  the  friends  of  Chase  struck  their  blow. 
Seward  instantly  offered  his  resignation.  But 
Lincoln  skillfully  temporized.  Thereupon,  Chase 
also  resigned.  Judging  from  the  scanty  evidence 
we  have  of  his  intention,  we  may  conclude  that 
he  thought  he  had  Lincoln  in  a  corner  and  that 
he  expected  either  to  become  first  minister  or  the 
avowed  chief  of  an  irresistible  opposition.  But 
he  seems  to  have  gone  too  fast  for  his  followers. 
Lincoln  had  met  them,  together  with  his  Cabinet, 
in  a  conference  in  December,  1862,  and  frankly 
discussed  the  situation,  with  the  result  that  some 
of  them  wavered.  When  Lincoln  informed  both 
Seward  and  Chase  that  he  declined  to  accept  their 
resignations,  both  returned  —  Seward  with  alac- 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  199 

rity,  Chase  with  reluctance.  One  of  the  clues  to 
Lincoln's  cabinet  policy  was  his  determination  to 
keep  both  these  factions  committed  to  the  Gov 
ernment,  without  allowing  himself  to  be  under  the 
thumb  of  either. 

During  the  six  months  following  the  cabinet 
crisis  Chase  appears  at  his  best.  A  stupendous 
difficulty  lay  before  him  and  he  attacked  it  man 
fully.  The  Government's  deficit  was  $276,900,000. 
Of  the  loans  authorized  in  1862  —  the  "five-twen 
ties"  as  they  were  called,  bringing  six  per  cent 
and  to  run  from  five  to  twenty  years  at  the  Gov 
ernment's  pleasure  —  the  sales  had  brought  in, 
to  December,  1862,  only  $23,750,000,  though  five 
hundred  million  had  been  expected.  The  banks  in 
declining  to  handle  these  bonds  laid  the  blame  on 
the  Secretary,  who  had  insisted  that  all  purchasers 
should  take  them  at  par. 

It  is  not  feasible,  in  a  work  of  this  character, 
to  enter  into  the  complexities  of  the  financial  sit 
uation  of  1863,  or  to  determine  just  what  influ 
ences  caused  a  revolution  in  the  market  for  govern 
ment  bonds.  But  two  factors  must  be  mentioned. 
Chase  was  induced  to  change  his  attitude  and  to 
sell  to  banks  large  numbers  of  bonds  at  a  rate 
below  par,  thus  enabling  the  banks  to  dispose  of 


200  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

them  at  a  profit.  He  also  called  to  his  aid  Jay 
Cooke,  an  experienced  banker,  who  was  allowed 
a  commission  of  one-half  per  cent  on  all  bonds 
sold  up  to  $10,000,000  and  three-eighths  of  one 
per  cent  after  that.  Cooke  organized  a  country 
wide  agency  system,  with  twenty-five  hundred 
sub-agents  through  whom  he  offered  directly  to 
the  people  bonds  in  small  denominations.  By  all 
manner  of  devices,  patriotism  and  the  purchase  of 
bonds  were  made  to  appear  the  same  thing,  and 
before  the  end  of  the  year  $400,000,000  in  five- 
twenty  bonds  had  been  sold.  This  campaign  to 
dispose  of  the  five-twenties  was  the  turning-point 
in  war  finance,  and  later  borrowings  encountered 
no  such  difficulties  as  those  of  1862  and  1863. 

Better  known  today  than  this  precarious  leg 
islation  is  the  famous  Act  of  1863,  which  was 
amended  in  the  next  year  and  which  forms  the 
basis  of  our  present  system  of  national  banks.  To 
Chase  himself  the  credit  for  this  seems  to  be  due. 
Even  in  1861  he  advised  Congress  to  establish  a 
system  of  national  banks,  and  he  repeated  the 
advice  before  it  was  finally  taken.  The  central 
feature  of  this  system  which  he  advocated  is  one 
with  which  we  are  still  familiar:  permission  to 
the  banks  accepting  government  supervision  to 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  201 

deposit  government  bonds  in  the  Treasury  and 
to  acquire  in  return  the  right  to  issue  bank-notes 
to  the  amount  of  ninety  per  cent  of  the  value 
of  the  bonds. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Chase  himself 
rated  very  highly  his  own  services  to  his  country. 
Nor  is  there  any  doubt  that,  alone  among  Lin 
coln's  close  associates,  he  continued  until  the  end 
to  believe  himself  a  better  man  than  the  President. 
He  and  his  radical  following  made  no  change  in 
their  attitude  to  Lincoln,  though  Chase  pursued  a 
course  of  confidential  criticism  which  has  since 
inspired  the  characterization  of  him  as  a  "sneak," 
while  his  followers  were  more  outspoken.  In  the 
summer  of  1863  Chase  was  seriously  talked  of  as 
the  next  President,  and  before  the  end  of  the  year 
Chase  clubs  were  being  organized  in  all  the  large 
cities  to  promote  his  candidacy.  Chase  himself 
took  the  adroit  position  of  not  believing  that  any 
President  should  serve  a  second  term. 

Early  in  1864  the  Chase  organization  sent  out  a 
confidential  circular  signed  by  Senator  Pomeroy  of 
Kansas  setting  forth  the  case  against  Lincoln  as  a 
candidate  and  the  case  in  favor  of  Chase.  Un 
fortunately  for  Chase,  this  circular  fell  into  the 
hands  of  a  newspaper  and  was  published.  Chase 


202  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

at  once  wrote  to  Lincoln  denying  any  knowledge 
of  the  circular  but  admitting  his  candidacy  and 
offering  his  resignation.  No  more  remarkable 
letter  was  written  by  Lincoln  than  his  reply  to 
Chase,  in  which  he  showed  that  he  had  long  fully 
understood  the  situation,  and  which  he  closed 
with  these  words:  "Whether  you  shall  remain  at 
the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department  is  a  ques 
tion  which  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  consider  from 
any  standpoint  other  than  my  judgment  of  the 
public  service,  and,  in  that  view,  I  do  not  perceive 
occasion  for  change." 

The  Chase  boom  rapidly  declined.  The  death 
blow  was  given  by  a  caucus  of  the  Union  members 
of  the  legislature  of  his  own  State  nominating 
Lincoln  "at  the  demand  of  the  people  and  the 
soldiers  of  Ohio."  The  defeat  embittered  Chase. 
For  several  months,  however,  he  continued  in  the 
Cabinet,  and  during  this  time  he  had  the  morti 
fication  of  seeing  Lincoln  renominated  in  the  Na 
tional  Union  Convention  amid  a  great  display  of 
enthusiasm. 

More  than  once  in  the  past,  Chase  had  offered 
his  resignation.  On  one  occasion  Lincoln  had 
gone  to  his  house  and  had  begged  him  to  recon 
sider  his  decision.  Soon  after  the  renomination, 


THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  203 

Chase  again  offered  his  resignation  upon  the  pretext 
of  a  disagreement  with  the  President  over  appoint 
ments  to  office.  This  time,  however,  Lincoln  felt 
the  end  had  come  and  accepted  the  resignation. 
Chase's  successor  in  the  Treasury  was  William  Pitt 
Fessenden,  Senator  from  Maine.  During  most  of 
the  summer  of  1864  Chase  stood  aside,  sullen  and 
envious,  watching  the  progress  of  Lincoln  toward 
a  second  election.  So  much  did  his  bitterness  af 
fect  his  judgment  that  he  was  capable  of  writing 
in  his  diary  his  belief  that  Lincoln  meant  to  re 
verse  his  policy  and  consent  to  peace  with  slavery 
reestablished. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NORTHERN    LIFE   DURING   THE   WAR 

THE  real  effects  of  war  on  the  life  of  nations  is  one 
of  those  old  and  complicated  debates  which  lie 
outside  the  scope  of  a  volume  such  as  this.  Yet 
in  the  particular  case  of  the  Northern  people  it  is 
imperative  to  answer  two  questions  both  of  which 
have  provoked  interminable  discussion:  Was  the 
moral  life  of  the  North  good  or  bad  in  the  war 
years?  Was  its  commercial  life  sound? 

As  to  the  moral  question,  contemporary  evidence 
seems  at  first  sight  contradictory.  The  very  able 
Englishman  who  represented  the  Times,  William 
H.  Russell,  gives  this  ugly  picture  of  an  American 
city  in  1863: 

"Every  fresh  bulletin  from  the  battlefield  of 
Chickamauga,  during  my  three  weeks'  stay  in 
Cincinnati,  brought  a  long  list  of  the  dead  and 
wounded  of  the  Western  army,  many  of  whom,  of 
the  officers,  belonged  to  the  best  families  of  the 

204 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  205 

place.  Yet  the  signs  of  mourning  were  hardly 
anywhere  perceptible;  the  noisy  gaiety  of  the 
town  was  not  abated  one  jot." 

On  the  other  hand,  a  private  manuscript  of  a 
Cincinnati  family  describes  the  "intense  gloom 
hanging  over  the  city  like  a  pall"  during  the  period 
of  that  dreadful  battle.  The  memories  of  old 
people  at  Cincinnati  in  after  days  —  if  they  had 
belonged  to  the  "loyal"  party  —  contained  only 
sad  impressions  of  a  city  that  was  one  great  hospi 
tal  where  "all  our  best  people"  worked  passion 
ately  as  volunteer  assistants  of  the  government 
medical  corps. 

A  third  fact  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  connection 
with  this  apparent  contradiction  in  evidence  is  the 
source  of  the  greater  fortunes  of  Cincinnati,  a 
large  proportion  of  which  are  to  be  traced,  directly 
or  indirectly  to  government  contracts  during  the 
war.  In  some  cases  the  merciless  indifference  of 
the  Cincinnati  speculators  to  the  troubles  of  their 
country  are  a  local  scandal  to  this  day,  and  it  is 
still  told,  sometimes  with  scorn,  sometimes  with 
amusement,  how  perhaps  the  greatest  of  these 
fortunes  was  made  by  forcing  up  the  price  of  iron 
at  a  time  when  the  Government  had  to  have  iron, 
cost  what  it  might. 


206  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Thus  we  no  sooner  take  up  the  moral  problem 
of  the  times  than  we  find  ourselves  involved  in  the 
commercial  question,  for  here,  as  always,  morals 
and  business  are  intertwined.  Was  the  commer 
cial  management  of  the  North  creditable  to  the 
Government  and  an  honor  to  the  people?  The 
surest  way  to  answer  such  questions  is  to  trace 
out  with  some  fullness  the  commercial  and  indus 
trial  conditions  of  the  North  during  the  four  years 
of  war. 

The  general  reader  who  looks  for  the  first  time 
into  the  matter  is  likely  to  be  staggered  by  what 
statistics  seem  to  say.  Apparently  they  contra 
dict  what  he  is  accustomed  to  hear  from  popular 
economists  about  the  waste  of  war.  He  has  been 
told  in  the  newspapers  that  business  is  undermined 
by  the  withdrawal  of  great  numbers  of  men  from 
"productive"  consumption  of  the  fruits  of  labor 
and  their  engagement  as  soldiers  in  "unproduc 
tive"  consumption.  But,  to  his  astonishment,  he 
finds  that  the  statistics  of  1861-1865  show  much 
increase  in  Northern  business  —  as,  for  example, 
in  1865,  the  production  of  142  million  pounds  of 
wool  against  60  million  in  1860.  The  government 
reports  show  that  13  million  tons  of  coal  were 
mined  in  1860  and  21  million  in  1864;  in  1860, 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  207 

the  output  of  pig  iron  was  821,000  tons,  and  1,- 
014,282  tons  in  1864;  the  petroleum  production 
rose  from  21  million  gallons  in  1860  to  128  mil 
lion  in  1862;  the  export  of  corn,  measured  in 
money,  shows  for  1860  a  business  of  $2,399,808 
compared  with  $10,592,704  for  1863;  wheat  ex 
porting  showed,  also,  an  enormous  increase,  rising 
from  14  millions  in  1860  to  46  millions  in  1863. 
There  are,  to  be  sure,  many  statistics  which  seem 
to  contradict  these.  Some  of  them  will  be  men 
tioned  presently.  And  yet,  on  the  whole,  it  seems 
safe  to  conclude  that  the  North,  at  the  close  of 
the  third  year  of  war  was  producing  more  and  was 
receiving  larger  profits  than  in  1860. 

To  deal  with  this  subject  in  its  entirety  would 
lead  us  into  the  labyrinths  of  complex  economic 
theory,  yet  two  or  three  simple  facts  appear  so 
plain  that  even  the  mere  historian  may  venture  to 
set  them  forth.  When  we  look  into  the  statistics 
which  seem  to  show  a  general  increase  of  business 
during  the  war,  we  find  that  in  point  of  fact  this 
increase  was  highly  specialized.  All  those  indus 
tries  that  dealt  with  the  physical  necessities  of 
life  and  all  those  that  dealt  peculiarly  with  armies 
flourished  amazingly.  And  yet  there  is  another 
side  to  the  story,  for  there  were  other  indus- 


208  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

tries  that  were  set  back  and  some  that  almost, 
if  not  entirely,  disappeared.  A  good  instance 
is  the  manufacture  of  cotton  cloth.  When  the 
war  opened,  200,000  hands  were  employed  in  this 
manufacture  in  New  England.  With  the  seal 
ing  up  of  the  South  and  the  failure  of  the  cot 
ton  supply,  their  work  temporarily  ceased.  What 
became  of  the  workmen?  Briefly,  one  of  three 
things  happened:  some  went  into  other  trades, 
such  as  munitions,  in  which  the  war  had  created 
an  abnormal  demand  for  labor;  a  great  number 
of  them  became  soldiers;  and  many  of  them  went 
West  and  became  farmers  or  miners.  Further 
more,  many  whose  trades  were  not  injured  by  the 
war  left  their  jobs  and  fled  westward  to  escape 
conscription.  Their  places  were  left  open  to  be 
filled  by  operatives  from  the  injured  trades.  In 
one  or  another  of  these  ways  the  laborer  who  was 
thrown  out  of  work  was  generally  able  to  recover 
employment.  But  it  is  important  to  remember 
that  the  key  to  the  labor  situation  at  that  time 
was  the  vast  area  of  unoccupied  land  which  could 
be  had  for  nothing  or  next  to  nothing.  This  fact 
is  brought  home  by  a  comparison  of  the  situation 
of  the  American  with  that  of  the  English  workman 
during  the  cotton  famine.  According  to  its  own 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  209 

ideas  England  was  then  fully  cultivated.  There 
was  no  body  of  land  waiting  to  be  thrown  open, 
as  an  emergency  device,  to  a  host  of  new-made 
agriculturists.  When  the  cotton-mills  stopped  at 
Manchester,  their  operatives  had  practically  no 
openings  but  in  other  industrial  occupations.  As 
such  opportunities  were  lacking,  they  became  ob 
jects  of  charity  until  they  could  resume  their 
work.  As  a  country  with  a  great  reserve  of  un 
occupied  land,  the  United  States  was  singularly 
fortunate  at  this  economic  crisis. 

One  of  the  noteworthy  features  of  Northern 
life  during  the  war  is  that  there  was  no  abnor 
mal  increase  in  pauperism.  A  great  deal  has  been 
written  upon  the  extensive  charities  of  the  time, 
but  the  term  is  wrongly  applied,  for  what  is 
really  referred  to  is  the  volunteer  aid  given  to  the 
Government  in  supporting  the  armies.  This  was 
done  on  a  vast  scale,  by  all  classes  of  the  popula 
tion —  that  is,  by  all  who  supported  the  Union 
party,  for  the  separation  between  the  two  parties 
was  bitter  and  unforgiving.  But  of  charity  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  care  of  the  destitute  there 
was  no  significant  increase  because  there  was  no 
peculiar  need.  Here  again  the  fact  that  the  free 
land  could  be  easily  reached  is  the  final  explana- 
14 


210  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

tion.  There  was  no  need  for  the  unemployed 
workman  to  become  a  pauper.  He  could  take 
advantage  of  the  Homestead  Act,1  which  was 
passed  in  1862,  and  acquire  a  farm  of  160  acres 
free;  or  he  could  secure  at  almost  nominal  cost 
farm-land  which  had  been  given  to  railways  as 
an  inducement  to  build.  Under  the  Homestead 
Act,  the  Government  gave  away  land  amounting 
to  2,400,000  acres  before  the  close  of  the  war. 
The  Illinois  Central  alone  sold  to  actual  settlers 
221,000  acres  in  1863  and  264,000  in  1864.  It  was 
during  the  war,  too,  that  the  great  undertaking 
of  the  transcontinental  railway  was  begun,  partly 
for  military  and  partly  for  commercial  reasons. 
In  this  project,  both  as  a  field  of  labor  and  as  a 
stimulus  to  Western  settlement,  there  is  also  to  be 
found  one  more  device  for  the  relief  of  the  labor 
situation  in  the  East. 

There  is  no  more  important  phenomenon  of  the 
time  than  the  shifting  of  large  masses  of  popula 
tion  from  the  East  to  the  West,  while  the  war 
was  in  progress.  This  fact  begins  to  indicate  why 

1  This  Act,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  culmination  of  the  long 
battle  of  the  Northern  dreamers  to  win  "land  for  the  landless," 
provided  that  every  settler  who  was,  or  intended  to  be,  a  citizen 
might  secure  160  acres  of  government  land  by  living  on  it  and  cul 
tivating  it  for  five  years. 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  211 

there  was  no  shortage  in  the  agricultural  out 
put.  The  North  suffered  acutely  from  inflation 
of  prices  and  from  a  speculative  wildness  that 
accompanied  the  inflation,  but  it  did  not  suffer 
from  a  lack  of  those  things  that  are  produced  by 
the  soil  —  food,  timber,  metals,  and  coal.  In  ad 
dition  to  the  reason  just  mentioned  —  the  search 
for  new  occupation  by  Eastern  labor  which  had 
been  thrown  out  of  employment  —  three  other 
causes  helped  to  maintain  the  efficiency  of  work 
in  the  mines,  in  the  forests,  and  on  the  farms. 
These  three  factors  were  immigration,  the  labor 
of  women,  and  labor-saving  machines. 

Immigration,  naturally,  fell  off  to  a  certain  de 
gree  but  it  did  not  become  altogether  negligible. 
It  is  probable  that  110,000  able-bodied  men  came 
into  the  country  while  war  was  in  progress  —  a 
poor  offset  to  the  many  hundred  thousand  who 
became  soldiers,  but  nevertheless  a  contribution 
that  counted  for  something. 

Vastly  more  important,  in  the  work  of  the 
North,  was  the  part  taken  by  women.  A  pathetic 
detail  with  which  in  our  own  experience  the  world 
has  again  become  familiar  was  the  absence  of 
young  men  throughout  most  of  the  North,  and 
the  presence  of  women  new  to  the  work  in  many 


212  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

occupations,  especially  farming.  A  single  quota 
tion  from  a  home  missionary  in  Iowa  tells  the 
whole  story: 

I  will  mention  that  I  met  more  women  driving  teams 
on  the  road  and  saw  more  at  work  in  the  fields  than 
men.  They  seem  to  have  said  to  their  husbands  in  the 
language  of  a  favorite  song, 

"Just  take  your  gun  and  go; 
For  Ruth  can  drive  the  oxen,  John, 
And  I  can  use  the  hoe !  " 

I  went  first  to  Clarinda,  and  the  town  seemed  deserted. 
Upon  inquiry  for  former  friends,  the  frequent  answer 
was,  "In  the  army."  From  Hawleyville  almost  all  the 
thoroughly  loyal  male  inhabitants  had  gone;  and  in 
one  township  beyond,  where  I  formerly  preached,  there 
are  but  seven  men  left,  and  at  Quincy,  the  county 
seat  of  Adams  County,  but  five. 


Even  more  important  than  the  change  in  the 
personnel  of  labor  were  the  new  machines  of  the 
day.  During  the  fifteen  years  previous  to  the  war 
American  ingenuity  had  reached  a  high  point. 
Such  inventions  as  the  sewing-machine  and  the 
horse-reaper  date  in  their  practical  forms  from 
that  period,  and  both  of  these  helped  the  North 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  213 

to  fight  the  war.  Their  further  improvement,  and 
the  extension  of  the  principles  involved  to  many 
new  forms  of  machinery,  sprang  from  the  pressing 
need  to  make  up  for  the  loss  of  men  who  were 
drained  by  the  army  from  the  farms  and  the 
workshops.  It  was  the  horse-reaper,  the  horse- 
rake,  the  horse-thresher  that  enabled  women  and 
boys  to  work  the  farms  while  husbands,  fathers, 
and  elder  brothers  were  at  the  front. 

All  these  causes  maintained  Northern  farming 
at  a  high  pitch  of  productivity.  This  efficiency 
is  implied  in  some  of  the  figures  already  quoted, 
but  many  others  could  be  cited.  For  example,  in 
1859,  the  total  production  of  wheat  for  the  whole 
country  was  173  million  bushels;  in  1862,  the 
North  alone  produced  177  millions;  even  in  1864, 
with  over  a  million  men  under  arms,  it  still  pro 
duced  160  million  bushels. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  great  Northern 
army  produced  nothing  while  it  consumed  the 
products  of  agriculture  and  manufacture  —  food, 
clothing,  arms,  ammunition,  cannon,  wagons, 
horses,  medical  stores  —  at  a  rate  that  might  have 
led  a  poetical  person  to  imagine  the  army  as  a 
devouring  dragon.  Who,  in  the  last  analysis,  pro 
vided  all  these  supplies?  Who  paid  the  soldiers? 


214  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Who  supplemented  their  meager  pay  and  sup 
ported  their  families?  The  people,  of  course;  and 
they  did  so  both  directly  and  indirectly.  In  taxes 
and  loans  they  paid  to  the  Government  about 
three  thousand  millions  of  dollars.  Their  indirect 
assistance  was  perhaps  as  great,  though  it  is 
impossible  today  to  estimate  with  any  approach 
to  accuracy  the  amount  either  in  money  or  service. 
Among  obvious  items  are  the  collections  made  by 
the  Sanitary  Commission  for  the  benefit  of  the 
hospital  service,  amounting  to  twenty -five  million 
dollars,  and  about  six  millions  raised  by  the  Chris 
tian  Commission.  In  a  hundred  other  ways  both 
individuals  and  localities  strained  their  resources 
to  supplement  those  of  the  Government.  Immense 
subscription  lists  were  circulated  to  raise  funds 
for  the  families  of  soldiers.  The  city  of  Phila 
delphia  alone  spent  in  this  way  in  a  single  year 
$600,000.  There  is  also  evidence  of  a  vast  amount 
of  unrecorded  relief  of  needy  families  by  the  neigh 
bors,  and  in  the  farming  districts  such  assistance, 
particularly  in  the  form  of  fuel  during  winter,  was 
very  generally  given. 

What  made  possible  this  enormous  total  of 
contributions  was,  in  a  word,  the  general  willing 
ness  of  those  supporting  the  war  to  forego  luxuries. 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  215 

They  ceased  buying  a  great  multitude  of  unneces 
sary  things.  But  what  became  of  the  labor  that 
had  previously  supplied  the  demand  for  luxuries? 
A  part  of  it  went  the  way  of  all  other  Northern 
labor  —  into  new  trades,  into  the  army,  or  to  the 
West  —  and  a  part  continued  to  manufacture 
luxuries:  for  their  market,  though  curtailed,  was 
not  destroyed.  There  were,  indeed,  two  popu 
lations  in  the  North,  and  they  were  separated 
by  an  emotional  chasm.  Had  all  the  North  been  a 
unit  in  feeling,  the  production  of  articles  of  luxury 
might  have  ceased.  Because  of  this  emotional 
division  of  the  North,  however,  this  business  sur 
vived;  for  the  sacrifice  of  luxurious  expenditure 
was  made  by  only  a  part  of  the  population,  even 
though  it  was  the  majority. 

Furthermore,  the  whole  matter  was  adjusted 
voluntarily  without  systematic  government  direc 
tion,  since  there  was  nothing  in  the  financial  policy 
of  the  Government  to  correspond  to  conscription. 
Consequently,  both  in  the  way  of  loans  and  in  the 
way  of  contributions,  as  well  as  in  the  matter  of 
unpaid  service,  the  entire  burden  fell  upon  the 
war  party  alone.  In  the  absence  of  anything  like 
economic  conscription,  if  such  a  phrase  may  be 
used,  those  Northerners  who  did  not  wish  to  lend 


216  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

money,  or  to  make  financial  sacrifice,  or  to  give 
unpaid  service,  were  free  to  pursue  their  own 
bent.  The  election  of  1864  showed  that  they 
formed  a  market  which  amounted  to  something 
between  six  and  nine  millions.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  these  millions  in  1864  spent  less 
on  luxuries  than  they  did  in  1860.  Two  or  three 
items  are  enough.  In  1860,  the  importation  of 
silk  amounted  to  32  million  dollars;  in  1862, 
in  spite  of  inflated  prices,  it  had  shrunk  to  7 
millions;  the  consumption  of  malt  liquors  shrank 
from  101  million  gallons  in  1860  to  62  million 
gallons  in  1863;  of  coffee,  hardly  to  be  classed  as  a 
luxury,  there  were  consumed  in  1861,  184  million 
pounds  and  in  1863,  80  millions. 

The  clue  to  the  story  of  capital  is  to  be  found  in 
this  fact,  too  often  forgotten,  that  there  was  an 
economic-political  division  cutting  deep  through 
every  stratum  of  the  Northern  people.  Their 
economic  life  as  well  as  their  political  life  was 
controlled  on  the  one  hand  by  a  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  the  war,  and  on  the  other  hand  by  a 
hatred  of  that  cause  or  by  cynical  indifference. 
And  we  cannot  insist  too  positively  that  the 
Government  failed  very  largely  to  take  this  fact 
into  account.  The  American  spirit  of  invention, 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  217 

so  conspicuous  at  that  time  in  mechanics,  did  not 
apply  itself  to  the  science  of  government.  Lincoln 
confessedly  was  not  a  financier;  his  instinct  was  at 
home  only  in  problems  that  could  be  stated  in 
terms  of  men.  Witness  his  acceptance  of  con 
scription  and  his  firmness  in  carrying  it  through, 
as  a  result  of  which  he  saved  the  patriotic  party 
from  bearing  the  whole  burden  of  military  service. 
But  there  was  no  parallel  conservation  of  power 
in  the  field  of  industry.  The  financial  policy,  left 
in  the  hands  of  Chase,  may  truly  be  described 
as  barren  of  ideas.  Incidentally,  it  may  be  men 
tioned  that  the  "loyal"  North  was  left  at  the 
mercy  of  its  domestic  enemies  and  a  prey  to 
parasites  by  Chase's  policy  of  loans  instead  of 
taxes  and  of  voluntary  support  instead  of  enforced 
support. 

The  consequence  of  this  financial  policy  was  an 
immense  opportunity  for  the  "disloyals"  and  the 
parasites  to  make  huge  war  profits  out  of  the  "loy- 
als"  and  the  Government.  Of  course,  it  must  not 
be  supposed  that  everyone  who  seized  the  chance 
to  feather  his  nest  was  so  careless  or  so  impolitic  as 
to  let  himself  be  classed  as  a  "disloyal."  An  in 
cident  of  the  autumn  of  1861  shows  the  temper  of 
those  professed  "loyals"  who  were  really  para- 


218  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

sites.  The  background  of  the  incident  is  supplied 
by  a  report  of  the  Quartermaster-General : 

"Governors  daily  complain  that  recruiting  will 
stop  unless  clothing  is  sent  in  abundance  and 
immediately  to  the  various  recruiting  camps  and 
regiments.  With  every  exertion,  this  department 
has  not  been  able  to  obtain  clothing  to  supply 
these  demands,  and  they  have  been  so  urgent  that 
troops  before  the  enemy  have  been  compelled  to 
do  picket  duty  in  the  late  cold  nights  without 
overcoats,  or  even  coats,  wearing  only  thin  sum 
mer  flannel  blouses.  .  .  .  Could  150,000  suits  of 
clothing,  overcoats,  coats,  and  pantaloons  be 
placed  today,  in  depot,  it  would  scarce  supply  the 
calls  now  before  us.  They  would  certainly  leave 
no  surplus." 

The  Government  attempted  to  meet  this  diffi 
culty  in  the  shortest  possible  time  by  purchas 
ing  clothing  abroad.  But  such  disregard  of  home 
industry,  the  "patriotism"  of  the  New  England 
manufacturers  could  not  endure.  Along  with  the 
report  just  quoted,  the  Quartermaster-General 
forwarded  to  the  Secretary  of  War  a  long  argu 
mentative  protest  from  a  committee  of  the  Boston 
Board  of  Trade  against  the  purchase  of  army 
clothing  in  Europe.  Any  American  of  the  present 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  219 

day  can  guess  how  the  protest  was  worded  and 
what  arguments  were  used.  Stripped  of  its  in 
sincerity,  it  signified  this:  the  cotton  mills  were 
inoperative  for  lack  of  material;  their  owners 
saw  no  chance  to  save  their  dividends  except  by 
re-equipment  as  woolen  mills;  the  existing  woolen 
mills  also  saw  a  great  chance  to  force  wool  upon 
the  market  as  a  substitute  for  cotton.  In  Ohio, 
California,  Pennsylvania,  and  Illinois,  the  growers 
of  wool  saw  the  opportunity  with  equal  clearness. 
But,  one  and  all,  these  various  groups  of  parasites 
saw  that  their  game  hinged  on  one  condition:  the 
munitions  market  must  be  kept  open  until  they 
were  ready  to  monopolize  government  contracts. 
If  soldiers  contracted  pneumonia  doing  picket 
duty  on  cold  nights,  in  their  summer  blouses,  that 
was  but  an  unfortunate  incident  of  war. 

Very  different  in  spirit  from  the  protest  of 
the  Boston  manufacturers  is  a  dispatch  from 
the  American  minister  at  Brussels  which  shows 
what  American  public  servants,  in  contrast  with 
American  manufacturers,  were  about.  Abroad  the 
agents  of  North  and  South  were  fighting  a  com 
mercial  duel  in  which  each  strove  to  monopolize 
the  munitions  market.  The  United  States  Navy, 
seeing  things  from  an  angle  entirely  different  from 


220  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

that  of  the  Boston  Board  of  Trade,  ably  seconded 
the  ministers  by  blockading  the  Southern  ports 
and  by  thus  preventing  the  movement  of  specie 
and  cotton  to  Europe.  As  a  consequence,  four- 
month  notes  which  had  been  given  by  Southern 
agents  with  their  orders  fell  due,  had  to  be  re 
newed,  and  began  to  be  held  in  disfavor.  Agents 
of  the  North,  getting  wind  of  these  hitches  in 
negotiations,  eagerly  sought  to  take  over  the  un 
paid  Confederate  orders.  All  these  details  of  the 
situation  help  to  explain  the  jubilant  tone  of  this 
dispatch  from  Brussels  late  in  November,  1861: 

"I  have  now  in  my  hands  complete  control  of 
the  principal  rebel  contracts  on  the  continent,  viz. : 
206,000  yards  of  cloth  ready  for  delivery,  already 
commencing  to  move  forward  to  Havre;  gray  but 
can  be  dyed  blue  in  twenty  days;  100,000  yards 
deliverable  from  15th  of  December  to  26th  of 
January,  light  blue  army  cloth,  same  as  ours; 
100,000  blankets;  40,000  guns  to  be  shipped  in 
ten  days;  20,000  saber  bayonets  to  be  delivered 
in  six  weeks.  .  .  .  The  winter  clothing  for  100,000 
men  taken  out  of  their  hands,  when  they  cannot 
replace  it,  would  almost  compensate  for  Bull  Run. 
There  is  no  considerable  amount  of  cloth  to  be 
had  in  Europe;  the  stocks  are  very  short." 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  221 

The  Secretary  of  War  was  as  devoid  of  ideas  as 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  and  even  less 
equipped  with  resisting  power.  Though  he  could 
not  undo  the  work  already  done  by  the  agents  of 
the  Government  abroad,  he  gave  way  as  rapidly  as 
possible  to  the  allied  parasites  whose  headquarters, 
at  the  moment,  were  in  Boston.  The  story  grows 
uglier  as  we  proceed.  Two  powerful  commercial 
combinations  took  charge  of  the  policy  of  the 
woolen  interests  —  the  National  Wool-growers' 
Association  and  the  National  Association  of  Wool 
Manufacturers,  which  were  soon  in  control  of  this 
immense  industry.  Woolen  mills  sprang  up  so 
fast  that  a  report  of  the  New  York  Chamber 
of  Commerce  pronounced  their  increase  "scarcely 
credible."  So  great  was  the  new  market  created 
by  the  Government  demand,  and  so  ruthless  were 
the  parasites  in  forcing  up  prices,  that  dividends  on 
mill  stock  rose  to  10,  15,  25,  and  even  40  per  cent. 
And  all  the  while  the  wool  growers  and  the  wool 
manufacturers  were  clamoring  to  Congress  for 
protection  of  the  home  industry,  exclusion  of  the 
wicked  foreign  competition,  and  all  in  the  name 
of  their  devoted  "patriotism" —  patriotism  with  a 
dividend  of  40  per  cent! 

Of  course,  it  is  not  meant  that  every  wool 


222  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

grower  and  every  woolen  manufacturer  was  either 
a  "disloyal"  or  a  parasite.  By  no  means.  Num 
bers  of  them  were  to  be  found  in  that  great  host  of 
"loyals"  who  put  their  dividends  into  government 
bonds  and  gave  their  services  unpaid  as  auxiliaries 
of  the  Commissary  Department  or  the  Hospital 
Service  of  the  Army.  What  is  meant  is  that  the 
abnormal  conditions  of  industry,  uncorrected  by 
the  Government,  afforded  a  glaring  opportunity  for 
unscrupulous  men  of  business  who,  whatever  their 
professions,  cared  a  hundred  times  more  for  them 
selves  than  for  their  country.  To  these  was  due  the 
pitiless  hampering  of  the  army  in  the  interest  of 
the  wool-trade.  For  example,  many  uniforms  paid 
for  at  outrageous  prices,  turned  out  to  be  made 
of  a  miserable  cheap  fabric,  called  "shoddy," 
which  resisted  weather  scarcely  better  than  paper. 
This  fraud  gave  the  word  "  shoddy  "  its  present 
significance  in  our  American  speech  and  produced 
the  phrase  —  applied  to  manufacturers  newly  be 
come  rich  —  "  shoddy  aristocracy."  An  even  more 
shameful  result  of  the  selfishness  of  the  manu 
facturers  and  of  the  weakness  of  the  Government 
was  the  use  of  cloth  for  uniforms  not  of  the  regula 
tion  colors,  with  the  result  that  soldiers  sometimes 
fired  upon  their  comrades  by  mistake. 


NORTHERN  LIFE  DURING  THE  WAR  223 

The  prosperity  of  the  capitalists  who  financed 
the  woolen  business  did  not  extend  to  the  labor 
employed  in  it.  One  of  the  ugliest  details  of  the 
time  was  the  resolute  attempt  of  the  parasites 
to  seize  the  whole  amount  of  the  abnormal  profits 
they  wrung  from  the  Government  and  from  the 
people.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
whole  nation  had  to  pay  their  prices.  It  is  esti 
mated  that  prices  in  the  main  advanced  about 
100  per  cent  while  wages  were  not  advanced  more 
than  sixty  per  cent.  It  is  not  strange  that  these 
years  of  war  form  a  period  of  bitter  antagonism 
between  labor  and  capital. 

What  went  on  in  the  woolen  business  is  to  be 
found  more  or  less  in  every  business.  Immense 
fortunes  sprang  up  over  night.  They  had  but  two 
roots :  government  contracts  and  excessive  profits 
due  to  war  prices.  The  gigantic  fortunes  which 
characterized  the  North  at  the  end  of  the  war  are 
thus  accounted  for.  The  so-called  prosperity  of 
the  time  was  a  class-prosperity  and  was  absorbed 
by  parasites  who  fattened  upon  the  necessities  of 
the  Government  and  the  sacrifices  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE 

THAT  French  demagogue  whom  Victor  Hugo  aptly 
called  Napoleon  the  Little  was  a  prime  factor  in 
the  history  of  the  Union  and  the  Confederacy. 
The  Confederate  side  of  his  intrigue  will  be  told 
in  its  proper  place.  Here,  let  us  observe  him  from 
the  point  of  view  of  Washington. 

It  is  too  much  to  attempt  to  pack  into  a  sentence 
or  two  the  complicated  drama  of  deceit,  lies,  and 
graft,  through  which  he  created  at  last  a  pretext 
for  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  Mexico;  it  is 
enough  that  in  the  autumn  of  1862  a  French  army 
of  invasion  marched  from  Vera  Cruz  upon  Mexico 
City.  We  have  already  seen  that  about  this  same 
time  Napoleon  proposed  to  England  and  Russia 
a  joint  intervention  with  France  between  North 
and  South  —  a  proposal  which,  however,  was  re 
jected.  This  Mexican  venture  explains  why  the 
plan  was  suggested  at  that  particular  time. 

224 


THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE  225 

Disappointed  in  England  and  Russia,  Napo 
leon  unexpectedly  received  encouragement,  as  he 
thought,  from  within  the  United  States  through 
the  medium  of  the  eccentric  editor  of  the  New 
York  Tribune.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  return 
later  to  the  adventures  of  Horace  Greeley  —  that 
erratic  individual  who  has  many  good  and  gen 
erous  acts  to  his  credit,  as  well  as  many  foolish 
ones.  For  the  present  we  have  to  note  that  to 
ward  the  close  of  1862  he  approached  the  French 
Ambassador  at  Washington  with  a  request  for 
imperial  mediation  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  Greeley  was  a  type  of  American  that  no 
European  can  understand:  he  believed  in  talk, 
and  more  talk,  and  still  more  talk,  as  the  cure  for 
earthly  ills.  He  never  could  understand  that 
anybody  besides  himself  could  have  strong  con 
victions.  When  he  told  the  Ambassador  that  the 
Emperor's  mediation  would  lead  to  a  reconcilia 
tion  of  the  sections,  he  was  doubtless  sincere  in  his 
belief.  The  astute  European  diplomat,  who  could 
not  believe  such  simplicity,  thought  it  a  mask. 
When  he  asked  for,  and  received,  permission  to 
pass  the  Federal  lines  and  visit  Richmond,  he 
interpreted  the  permit  in  the  light  of  his  assump 
tion  about  Greeley.  At  Richmond,  he  found  no 

15 


226  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

desire  for  reunion.  Putting  this  and  that  together, 
he  concluded  that  the  North  wanted  to  give  up 
the  fight  and  would  welcome  mediation  to  save  its 
face.  The  dreadful  defeat  at  Fredericksburg  fell 
in  with  this  reasoning.  His  reports  on  American 
conditions  led  Napoleon,  in  January,  1863,  to  at 
tempt  alone  what  he  had  once  hoped  to  do  sup 
ported  by  England  and  Russia.  He  proposed  his 
good  offices  to  the  Government  at  Washington  as 
a  mediator  between  North  and  South. 

Hitherto,  Washington  had  been  very  discreet 
about  Mexico.  Adroit  hints  not  to  go  too  far 
had  been  given  Napoleon  in  full  measure,  but 
there  was  no  real  protest.  The  State  Department 
now  continued  this  caution  and  in  the  most  polite 
terms  declined  Napoleon's  offer.  Congress,  how 
ever,  took  the  matter  more  grimly,  for  throughout 
the  dealings  with  Napoleon,  it  had  been  at  odds 
with  Lincoln.  It  now  passed  the  first  of  a  series  of 
resolutions  which  expressed  the  will  of  the  country, 
if  not  quite  the  will  of  the  President,  by  resolving 
that  any  further  proposal  of  mediation  would  be 
regarded  by  it  as  "an  unfriendly  act." 

Napoleon  then  resumed  his  scheming  for  joint 
intervention,  while  in  the  meantime  his  armies 
continued  to  fight  their  way  until  they  entered 


THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE  227 

Mexico  City  in  June,  1863.  The  time  had  now 
come  when  Napoleon  thought  it  opportune  to 
show  his  hand.  Those  were  the  days  when  Lee 
appeared  invincible,  and  when  Chancellorsville 
crowned  a  splendid  series  of  triumphs.  In  Eng 
land,  the  Southern  party  made  a  fresh  start;  and 
societies  were  organized  to  aid  the  Confederacy. 
At  Liverpool,  Laird  Brothers  were  building,  os 
tensibly  for  France,  really  for  the  Confederacy, 
two  ironclads  supposed  to  outclass  every  ship  in 
the  Northern  navy.  In  France,  100,000  unem 
ployed  cotton  hands  were  rioting  for  food.  To 
raise  funds  for  the  Confederacy  the  great  Erlanger 
banking-house  of  Paris  negotiated  a  loan  based 
on  cotton  which  was  to  be  delivered  after  the 
breaking  of  the  blockade.  Napoleon  dreamed  of 
a  shattered  American  union,  two  enfeebled  re 
publics,  and  a  broad  way  for  his  own  scheme  in 
Mexico. 

In  June  an  English  politician  of  Southern  sym 
pathies,  Edward  Roebuck,  went  over  to  France, 
was  received  by  the  Emperor,  and  came  to  an 
understanding  with  him.  Roebuck  went  home  to 
report  to  the  Southern  party  that  Napoleon  was 
ready  to  intervene,  and  that  all  he  waited  for  was 
England's  cooperation.  A  motion  "to  enter  into 


228  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

negotiations  with  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  their  cooperation  in  the 
recognition"  of  the  Confederacy  was  introduced 
by  Roebuck  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  debate  which  followed  was  the  last  chance 
of  the  Southern  party  and,  as  events  proved,  the 
last  chance  of  Napoleon.  How  completely  the 
British  ministry  was  now  committed  to  the  North 
appears  in  the  fact  that  Gladstone,  for  the  Govern 
ment,  opposed  Roebuck's  motion.  John  Bright 
attacked  it  in  what  Lord  Morley  calls  "perhaps 
the  most  powerful  and  the  noblest  speech  of  his 
life."  The  Southern  party  was  hardly  resolute 
in  their  support  of  Roebuck  and  presently  he 
withdrew  his  motion. 

But  there  were  still  the  ironclads  at  Liverpool. 
We  have  seen  that  earlier  in  the  war,  the  care 
lessness  of  the  British  authorities  had  permitted 
the  escape  of  ship  290,  subsequently  known  as  the 
Confederate  commerce-destroyer,  Alabama.  The 
authorities  did  not  wish  to  allow  a  repetition  of 
the  incident.  But  could  it  be  shown  that  the 
Laird  ships  were  not  really  for  a  French  pur 
chaser?  It  was  in  the  course  of  diplomatic  con 
versations  that  Mr.  Adams,  speaking  of  the  pos 
sible  sailing  of  the  ships,  made  a  remark  destined  to 


THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE  229 

become  famous:  "It  would  be  superfluous  in  me  to 
point  out  to  your  lordship  that  this  is  war."  At 
last,  the  authorities  were  satisfied.  The  ships 
were  seized  and  in  the  end  bought  for  the  British 
Navy. 

Again  Napoleon  stood  alone.  Not  only  had  he 
failed  to  obtain  aid  from  abroad,  but  in  France 
itself  his  Mexican  schemes  were  widely  and  bit 
terly  condemned.  Yet  he  had  gone  too  far  to  re 
cede,  and  what  he  had  been  aiming  at  all  along 
was  now  revealed.  An  assembly  of  Mexican  not 
ables,  convened  by  the  general  of  the  invaders, 
voted  to  set  up  an  imperial  government  and  of 
fered  the  crown  to  Napoleon's  nominee,  the  Arch 
duke  Maximilian  of  Austria. 

And  now  the  Government  at  Washington  was 
faced  with  a  complicated  problem.  What  about 
the  Monroe  Doctrine?  Did  the  Union  dare  risk 
war  with  France?  Did  it  dare  pass  over  without 
protest  the  establishment  of  monarchy  on  Ameri 
can  soil  by  foreign  arms?  Between  these  horns  of 
a  dilemma,  the  Government  maintained  its  pre 
carious  position  during  another  year.  Seward's 
correspondence  with  Paris  was  a  masterpiece  of 
evasion.  He  neither  protested  against  the  inter 
vention  of  Napoleon  nor  acknowledged  the  au- 


230  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

thority  of  Maximilian.  Apparently,  both  he  and 
Lincoln  were  divided  between  fear  of  a  French 
alliance  with  the  Confederacy  and  fear  of  prema 
ture  action  in  the  North  that  would  render  Napo 
leon  desperate.  Just  how  far  they  comprehended 
Napoleon  and  his  problems  is  an  open  question. 

Whether  really  comprehending  or  merely  trust 
ing  to  its  instinct,  Congress  took  a  bolder  course. 
Two  men  prove  the  antagonists  of  a  parliamen 
tary  duel  —  Charles  Sumner,  chairman  of  the  Sen 
ate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  and  Henry 
Winter  Davis,  chairman  of  the  corresponding  com 
mittee  of  the  House.  Sumner  played  the  hand 
of  the  Administration.  Fiery  resolutions  demand 
ing  the  evacuation  of  Mexico  or  an  American  de 
claration  of  war  were  skillfully  buried  in  the  silence 
of  Sumner's  committee.  But  there  was  neverthe 
less  one  resolution  that  affected  history:  it  was  a 
ringing  condemnation  of  the  attempt  to  establish 
a  monarchy  in  Mexico.  In  the  House,  a  joint  re 
solution  which  Davis  submitted  was  passed  with 
out  one  dissenting  vote.  When  it  came  to  the 
Senate,  Sumner  buried  it  as  he  had  buried  earlier 
resolutions.  None  the  less  it  went  out  to  the  world 
attended  by  the  news  of  the  unanimous  vote  in 
the  House. 


THE  MEXICAN  EPISODE  231 

Shortly  afterwards,  the  American  Ambassador 
at  Paris  called  upon  the  imperial  Foreign  Secre 
tary,  M.  Drouyn  de  L'huys.  News  of  this  resolu 
tion  had  preceded  him.  He  was  met  by  the  curt 
question,  "Do  you  bring  peace  or  war?"  Again, 
the  Washington  Government  was  skillfully  eva 
sive.  The  Ambassador  was  instructed  to  explain 
that  the  resolution  had  not  been  inspired  by  the 
President  and  "the  French  Government  would  be 
seasonably  apprized  of  any  change  of  policy  .  .  . 
which  the  President  might  at  any  future  time 
think  it  proper  to  adopt." 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  Lincoln's  course 
was  very  widely  condemned  as  timid.  When  we 
come  to  the  political  campaign  of  1864,  we  shall 
meet  Henry  Winter  Davis  among  his  most  relent 
less  personal  enemies.  Dissatisfaction  with  Lin 
coln's  Mexican  policy  has  not  been  sufficiently 
considered  in  accounting  for  the  opposition  to 
him,  inside  the  war  party,  in  1864.  To  it  may  be 
traced  an  article  in  the  platform  of  the  war  party, 
adopted  in  June,  1864,  protesting  against  the  es 
tablishment  of  monarchy  "in  near  proximity  to  the 
United  States."  In  the  same  month  Maximilian 
entered  Mexico  City. 

The  subsequent   moves   of  Napoleon   are  ex- 


232  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

plained  elsewhere.1  The  central  fact  in  the  story 
is  his  virtual  change  of  attitude,  in  the  summer  of 
1864.  The  Confederate  agent  at  Paris  complained 
of  a  growing  coolness.  Before  the  end  of  the  sum 
mer,  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  State  was  bit 
ter  in  his  denunciation  of  Napoleon  for  having 
deserted  the  South.  Napoleon's  puppet  Maxi 
milian  refused  to  receive  an  envoy  from  the  Con 
federacy.  Though  Washington  did  not  formally 
protest  against  the  presence  of  Maximilian  in 
Mexico,  it  declined  to  recognize  his  Government, 
and  that  Government  continued  unrecognized  at 
Washington  throughout  the  war. 

1  Nathaniel  W.  Stephenson,  The  Day  of  the  Confederacy.     (In 
The  Chronicles  of  America.) 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  PLEBISCITE  OF   1864 

EVERY  great  revolution  among  Anglo-Saxon  peo 
ple  —  perhaps  among  all  people  —  has  produced 
strange  types  of  dreamers.  In  America,  however, 
neither  section  could  claim  a  monopoly  of  such 
types,  and  even  the  latter-day  visionaries  who  can 
see  everything  in  heaven  and  earth,  excepting 
fact,  had  their  Northern  and  Southern  originals 
in  the  time  of  the  great  American  war.  Among 
these  is  a  strange  congregation  which  assembled 
in  the  spring  of  1864  and  which  has  come  to  be 
known,  from  its  place  of  meeting,  as  the  Cleve 
land  Convention.  Its  coming  together  was  the  re 
sult  of  a  loose  cooperation  among  several  minor 
political  groups,  all  of  which  were  for  the  Union 
and  the  war,  and  violently  opposed  to  Lincoln. 
So  far  as  they  had  a  common  purpose,  it  was  to 
supplant  Lincoln  by  Fremont  in  the  next  election. 
The  Convention  was  notable  for  the  large  pro- 

233 


234  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

portion  of  agnostics  among  its  members.  A  mo 
tion  was  made  to  amend  a  resolution  that  "the 
Rebellion  must  be  put  down"  by  adding  the  words 
"with  God's  assistance."  This  touch  of  piety  was 
stormily  rejected.  Another  group  represented  at 
Cleveland  was  made  up  of  extreme  abolitionists 
under  the  leadership  of  that  brilliant  but  disor 
dered  genius,  Wendell  Phillips.  He  sent  a  letter 
denouncing  Lincoln  and  pledging  his  support  of 
Fremont  because  of  the  latter 's  "clear-sighted 
statesmanship  and  rare  military  ability."  The 
convention  declared  itself  a  political  party,  under 
the  style  of  the  Radical  Democracy,  and  nomin 
ated  Fremont  for  President. 

There  was  another  body  of  dreamers,  still  more 
singular,  who  were  also  bitter  opponents  of  Lin 
coln.  They  were,  however,  not  in  favor  of  war. 
Their  political  machinery  consisted  of  secret  soci 
eties.  As  early  as  1860,  the  Knights  of  the 
Golden  Circle  were  active  in  Indiana,  where  they 
did  yeoman  service  for  Breckinridge.  Later  this 
society  acquired  some  underground  influence  in 
other  States,  especially  in  Ohio,  and  did  its  share 
in  bringing  about  the  victories  at  the  polls  in  the 
autumn  of  1862,  when  the  Democrats  captured 
the  Indiana  legislature. 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  235 

The  most  serious  charge  against  the  Golden 
Circle  was  complicity  in  an  attempt  to  assassinate 
Oliver  P.  Morton,  Governor  of  Indiana,  who  was 
fired  at,  one  night,  as  he  was  leaving  the  state 
house.  When  Morton  demanded  an  investiga 
tion  of  the  Golden  Circle,  the  legislature  refused 
to  sanction  it.  On  his  own  authority  and  with 
Federal  aid  he  made  investigations  and  published 
a  report  which,  if  it  did  not  actually  prove  treason, 
came  dangerously  near  to  proof.  Thereafter,  this 
society  drops  out  of  sight,  and  its  members  appear 
to  have  formed  the  new  Order  of  the  American 
Knights,  which  in  its  turn  was  eclipsed  by  the 
Sons  of  Liberty.  There  were  several  other  such 
societies  all  organized  on  a  military  plan  and  with 
a  great  pretense  of  arming  their  members.  This, 
however,  had  to  be  done  surreptitiously.  Boxes 
of  rifles  purchased  in  the  East  were  shipped  West 
labeled  "Sunday-school  books,"  and  negotiations 
were  even  undertaken  with  the  Confederacy  to 
bring  in  arms  by  way  of  Canada.  At  a  meeting 
of  the  supreme  council  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  in 
New  York,  February  22,  1864,  it  was  claimed  that 
the  order  had  nearly  a  million  members,  though 
the  Government  secret  service  considered  half  a 
million  a  more  exact  estimate. 


236  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

As  events  subsequently  proved,  the  societies 
were  not  as  formidable  as  these  figures  would 
imply.  Most  of  the  men  who  joined  them  seem 
to  have  been  fanciful  creatures  who  loved  se 
crecy  for  its  own  sake.  While  real  men,  North 
and  South,  were  laying  down  their  lives  for  their 
principles,  these  make-believe  men  were  holding 
bombastic  initiations  and  taking  oaths  such  as 
this  from  the  ritual  of  the  American  Knights: 
"I  do  further  solemnly  promise  and  swear,  that 
I  will  ever  cherish  the  sublime  lessons  which  the 
sacred  emblems  of  our  order  suggest,  and  will,  so 
far  as  in  me  lies,  impart  those  lessons  to  the 
people  of  the  earth,  where  the  mystic  acorn  falls 
from  its  parent  bough,  in  whose  visible  firmament 
Orion,  Arcturus,  and  the  Pleiades  ride  in  their 
cold  resplendent  glories,  and  where  the  Southern 
Cross  dazzles  the  eye  of  degraded  humanity  with 
its  coruscations  of  golden  light,  fit  emblem  of 
Truth,  while  it  invites  our  sacred  order  to  conse 
crate  her  temples  in  the  four  corners  of  the  earth, 
where  moral  darkness  reigns  and  despotism  holds 
sway.  .  .  .  Divine  essence,  so  help  me  that  I 
fail  not  in  my  troth,  lest  I  shall  be  summoned 
before  the  tribunal  of  the  order,  adjudged  and 
condemned  to  certain  and  shameful  death,  while 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  237 

my  name  shall  be  recorded  on  the  rolls  of  infamy. 
Amen." 

The  secret  orders  fought  hard  to  prevent  the 
Lincoln  victory  in  the  elections  of  1863.  Even 
before  that  time  their  leaders  had  talked  myste 
riously  of  another  disruption  of  the  Union  and 
the  formation  of  a  Northwestern  Confederacy  in 
alliance  with  the  South.  The  scheme  was  known 
to  the  Confederates,  allusions  to  it  are  to  be  found 
in  Southern  newspapers,  and  even  the  Confederate 
military  authorities  considered  it.  Early  in  1863, 
General  Beauregard  thought  the  Confederates 
might  "get  into  Ohio  and  call  upon  the  friends  of 
Vallandigham  to  rise  for  his  defense  and  support; 
then  .  .  .  call  upon  the  whole  Northwest  to  join 
in  the  movement,  form  a  confederacy  of  their  own, 
and  join  us  by  a  treaty  of  alliance,  offensive  and 
defensive."  Reliance  on  the  support  of  the  socie 
ties  was  the  will-o'-the-wisp  that  deceived  General 
John  Morgan  in  his  desperate  attempt  to  carry 
out  Beauregard's  programme.  Though  brushed 
aside  as  a  mere  detail  by  military  historians, 
Morgan's  raid,  with  his  force  of  irregular  cavalry, 
in  July,  1863,  through  Indiana  and  Ohio,  was  one 
of  the  most  romantic  episodes  of  the  war.  But 
it  ended  in  his  defeat  and  capture.  While  his 


238  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

gallant  troopers  rode  to  their  destruction,  the 
men  who  loved  to  swear  by  Arcturus  and  to  gabble 
about  the  Pleiades  showed  the  fiber  to  be  expected 
of  such  people,  and  stayed  snug  in  their  beds. 

But  neither  their  own  lack  of  hardihood  nor  the 
disasters  of  their  Southern  friends  could  dampen 
their  peculiar  ardor.  Their  hero  was  Vallandig- 
ham.  That  redoubtable  person  had  fixed  his  head 
quarters  in  Canada,  whence  he  directed  his  parti 
sans  in  their  vain  attempt  to  elect  him  Governor 
of  Ohio.  Their  next  move  was  to  honor  him  with 
the  office  of  Supreme  Commander  of  the  Sons  of 
Liberty,  and  now  Vallandigham  resolved  to  win 
the  martyr's  crown  in  very  fact.  In  June,  1864, 
he  prepared  for  the  dramatic  effect  by  carefully  ad 
vertising  his  intention  and  came  home.  But  to 
his  great  disappointment  Lincoln  ignored  him,  and 
the  dramatic  martyrdom  which  he  had  planned 
did  not  come  off. 

There  still  existed  the  possibility  of  a  great  up 
rising,  and  to  that  end  arrangements  were  made 
with  Southern  agents  in  Canada.  Confederate 
soldiers,  picked  men,  made  their  way  in  disguise 
to  Chicago.  There  the  worshipers  of  Arcturus 
were  to  join  them  in  a  mighty  multitude;  the 
Confederate  prisoners  at  Camp  Douglas  in  Chicago 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  239 

were  to  be  liberated;  around  that  core  of  veterans, 
the  hosts  of  the  Pleiades  were  to  rally.  All  this 
was  to  coincide  with  the  assembling  at  Chicago 
of  the  Democratic  national  convention,  in  which 
Vallandigham  was  to  appear.  The  organizers  of 
the  conspiracy  dreamed  that  the  two  events  might 
coalesce;  that  the  convention  might  be  stampeded 
by  their  uprising;  that  a  great  part,  if  not  the 
whole,  of  the  convention  would  endorse  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  Northwestern  Confederacy. 

Alas  for  him  who  builds  on  the  frame  of  mind 
that  delights  in  cheap  rhetoric  while  Rome  is  afire ! 
At  the  moment  of  hazard,  the  Sons  of  Liberty 
showed  the  white  feather,  were  full  of  specious 
words,  would  not  act.  The  Confederate  soldiers, 
indignant  at  this  second  betrayal,  had  to  make 
their  escape  from  the  country. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  Democratic 
national  convention  was  made  up  altogether  of 
Secessionists.  The  peace  party  was  still,  as  in  the 
previous  year,  a  strange  complex,  a  mixture  of 
all  sorts  and  conditions.  Its  cohesion  was  not  so 
much  due  to  its  love  of  peace  as  to  its  dislike  of 
Lincoln  and  its  hatred  of  his  party.  Vallandigham 
was  a  member  of  the  committee  on  resolutions. 
The  permanent  chairman  was  Governor  Seymour 


240  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

of  New  York.  The  Convention  was  called  to 
order  by  August  Belmont,  a  foreigner  by  birth,  the 
American  representative  of  the  Rothschilds.  He 
was  the  head  and  front  of  that  body  of  Northern 
capital  which  had  so  long  financed  the  South  and 
which  had  always  opposed  the  war.  In  opening 
the  Convention  he  said:  "Four  years  of  misrule 
by  a  sectional,  fanatical,  and  corrupt  party  have 
brought  our  country  to  the  verge  of  ruin."  In  the 
platform  Lincoln  was  accused  of  a  list  of  crimes 
which  it  had  become  the  habit  of  the  peace  party 
to  charge  against  him.  His  administration  was  de 
scribed  as  "four  years  of  failure,"  and  McClellan 
was  nominated  for  President. 

The  Republican  managers  called  a  convention  at 
Baltimore  in  June,  1864,  with  a  view  to  organizing 
a  composite  Union  Party  in  which  the  War  Demo 
crats  were  to  participate.  Their  plan  was  success 
ful.  The  second  place  on  the  Union  ticket  was 
accepted  by  a  War  Democrat,  Andrew  Johnson,  of 
Tennessee.  Lincoln  was  renominated,  though  not 
without  opposition,  and  he  was  so  keenly  aware 
that  he  was  not  the  unanimous  choice  of  the 
Union  Party  that  he  permitted  the  fact  to  appear 
in  a  public  utterance  soon  afterward.  "I  do  not 
allow  myself, "  he  said,  in  addressing  a  delegation 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  241 

of  the  National  Union  League,  "to  suppose  that 
either  the  Convention  or  the  League  have  con 
cluded  to  decide  that  I  am  either  the  greatest  or  the 
best  man  in  America,  but  rather  they  have  con 
cluded  it  is  not  best  to  swap  horses  while  crossing 
the  river,  and  have  further  concluded  that  I  am 
not  so  poor  a  horse  that  they  might  not  make  a 
botch  of  it  in  trying  to  swap."  But  the  Union 
Party  was  so  far  from  being  a  unit  that  during 
the  summer  factional  quarrels  developed  within 
its  ranks.  All  the  elements  that  were  unfriendly 
to  Lincoln  took  heart  from  a  dispute  between  the 
President  and  Congress  with  regard  to  reconstruc 
tion  in  Louisiana,  over  a  large  part  of  which  Fed 
eral  troops  had  established  a  civil  government 
on  the  President's  authority.  As  an  incident  in 
the  history  of  reconstruction,  this  whole  matter 
has  its  place  in  another  volume. x  But  it  also  has  a 
place  in  the  history  of  the  presidential  campaign 
of  1864.  Lincoln's  plan  of  reconstruction  was  ob 
noxious  to  the  Radicals  in  Congress  inasmuch  as 
it  did  not  definitely  abolish  slavery  in  Louisiana, 
although  it  required  the  new  Government  to  give 
its  adherence  to  the  Emancipation  Proclamation. 

1  Walter  L.  Fleming,  The  Sequel  of  Appomattox.   (In  The  Chronicles 
of  America.) 
16 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

Congress  passed  a  bill  taking  reconstruction  out 
of  the  President's  hands  and  definitely  requiring 
the  reconstructed  States  to  abolish  slavery.  Lin 
coln  took  the  position  that  Congress  had  no  power 
over  slavery  in  the  States.  When  his  Proclama 
tion  was  thrown  in  his  teeth,  he  replied,  "I  con 
ceive  that  I  may  in  an  emergency  do  things  on 
military  grounds  which  cannot  be  done  consti 
tutionally  by  Congress."  Incidentally  there  was 
a  further  disagreement  between  the  President  and 
the  Radicals  over  negro  suffrage.  Though  neither 
scheme  provided  for  it,  Lincoln  would  extend  it,  if 
at  all,  only  to  the  exceptional  negroes,  while  the 
Radicals  were  ready  for  a  sweeping  extension. 
But  Lincoln  refused  to  sign  their  bill  and  it  lapsed. 
Thereupon  Benjamin  Wade  of  Ohio  and  Henry 
Winter  Davis  of  Maryland  issued  a  savage  de 
nunciation  of  Lincoln  which  has  been  known  ever 
since  as  the  Wade-Davis  Manifesto. 

There  was  a  faction  in  the  Union  Party  which 
we  may  justly  name  the  Vindictives.  The  Mani 
festo  gave  them  a  rallying  cry.  At  a  conference 
in  New  York  they  decided  to  compel  the  retire 
ment  of  Lincoln  and  the  nomination  of  some  other 
candidate.  For  this  purpose  a  new  convention 
was  to  be  called  at  Cincinnati  in  September.  In 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  243 

the  ranks  of  the  Vindictives  at  this  time  was  the 
impetuous  editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  Hor 
ace  Greeley.  His  presence  there  calls  for  some 
explanation.  Perhaps  the  most  singular  figure  of 
the  time,  he  was  one  of  the  most  irresponsible  and 
yet,  through  his  paper,  one  of  the  most  influential. 
He  had  a  trick  of  phrase  which,  somehow,  made 
him  appear  oracular  to  the  plain  people,  especially 
in  the  rural  districts  —  the  very  people  on  whom 
Lincoln  relied  for  a  large  part  of  his  support. 
Greeley  knew  his  power,  and  his  mind  was  not 
large  enough  to  carry  the  knowledge  well.  Fur 
thermore,  his  was  the  sort  of  nature  that  relates 
itself  to  life  above  all  through  the  sensibilities. 
Kipling  speaks  scornfully  of  people  who  if  their 
"own  front  door  is  shut  will  swear  the  world  is 
warm."  They  are  relations  in  the  full  blood  of 
Horace  Greeley. 

In  July,  when  the  breach  between  the  President 
and  the  Vindictives  was  just  beginning  to  be 
evident,  Greeley  was  pursuing  an  adventure  of  his 
own.  Among  the  least  sensible  minor  incidents  of 
the  war  were  a  number  of  fantastic  attempts  of 
private  persons  to  negotiate  peace.  With  one 
exception  they  had  no  historic  importance.  The 
exception  is  a  negotiation  carried  on  by  Greeley, 


244  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

which  seems  to  have  been  the  ultimate  cause  of 
his  alliance  with  the  Vindictives. 

In  the  middle  of  July,  1864,  gold  was  selling  in 
New  York  at  285.  There  was  distress  and  dis 
content  throughout  the  country.  The  horrible 
slaughter  of  the  Wilderness,  still  fresh  in  every 
body's  mind,  had  put  the  whole  Union  Party  into 
mourning.  The  impressionable  Greeley  became 
frantic  for  peace  —  peace  at  any  price.  At  the 
psychological  moment  word  was  conveyed  to  him 
that  two  persons  in  Canada  held  authority  from 
the  Confederacy  to  enter  into  negotiations  for 
peace.  Greeley  wrote  to  Lincoln  demanding  ne 
gotiations  because  "our  bleeding,  bankrupt,  al 
most  dying  country  longs  for  peace,  shudders  at 
the  prospect  of  fresh  conscriptions,  of  further 
wholesale  devastations,  and  of  new  rivers  of 
human  blood." 

Lincoln  consented  to  a  negotiation  but  stipulated 
that  Greeley  himself  should  become  responsible 
for  its  conduct.  Though  this  was  not  what  Greeley 
wanted  —  for  his  type  always  prefers  to  tell  others 
what  to  do  —  he  sullenly  accepted.  He  proceeded 
to  Niagara  to  meet  the  reputed  commissioners  of 
the  Confederacy.  The  details  of  the  futile  con 
ference  do  not  concern  us.  The  Confederate 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  245 

agents  were  not  empowered  to  treat  for  peace 
—  at  least  not  on  any  terms  that  would  be  con 
sidered  at  Washington.  Their  real  purpose  was 
far  subtler.  Appreciating  the  delicate  balance  in 
Northern  politics,  they  aimed  at  making  it  appear 
that  Lincoln  was  begging  for  terms.  Lincoln,  who 
foresaw  this  possible  turn  of  events,  had  expressly 
limited  Greeley  to  negotiations  for  "the  integrity 
of  the  whole  Union  and  the  abandonment  of  slav 
ery."  Greeley  chose  to  believe  that  these  instruc 
tions,  and  not  the  subtlety  of  the  Confederate 
agents  and  his  own  impulsiveness,  were  the  cause 
of  the  false  position  in  which  the  agents  now 
placed  him.  They  published  an  account  of  the 
episode,  thus  effecting  an  exposure  which  led  to 
sharp  attacks  upon  Greeley  by  the  Northern  press. 
In  the  bitterness  of  his  mortification  Greeley  then 
went  from  one  extreme  to  the  other  and  joined  the 
Vindictives. 

Less  than  three  weeks  after  the  conference  at 
Niagara,  the  Wade-Davis  Manifesto  appeared.  It 
was  communicated  to  the  country  through  the 
columns  of  Greeley *s  paper  on  the  5th  of  August. 
Greeley,  who  so  short  a  time  before  was  for  peace 
at  any  price,  went  the  whole  length  of  reaction  by 
proclaiming  that  "Mr.  Lincoln  is  already  beaten. 


246  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

.  .  .  We  must  have  another  ticket  to  save  us 
from  utter  overthrow.  If  we  had  such  a  ticket 
as  could  be  made  by  naming  Grant,  Butler,  or 
Sherman  for  President  and  Farragut  for  Vice,  we 
could  make  a  fight  yet." 

At  about  this  same  time  the  chairman  of  the 
Republican  national  committee,  who  was  a  Lin 
coln  man,  wrote  to  the  President  that  the  situa 
tion  was  desperate.  Lincoln  himself  is  known 
to  have  made  a  private  memorandum  containing 
the  words,  "It  seems  extremely  probable  that 
this  Administration  will  not  be  reflected."  On 
the  1st  of  September,  1864,  with  three  presi 
dential  candidates  in  the  field,  Northern  politics 
were  bewildering,  and  the  country  was  shrouded 
in  the  deepest  gloom.  The  Wilderness  campaign, 
after  slaughter  unparalleled,  had  not  in  the  pop 
ular  mind  achieved  results.  Sherman,  in  Geor 
gia,  though  his  losses  were  not  as  terrible  as 
Grant's,  had  not  yet  done  anything  to  lighten 
the  gloom.  Not  even  Farragut *s  victory  in  Mo 
bile  Bay,  in  August,  far-reaching  as  it  proved  to 
be,  reassured  the  North.  A  bitter  cry  for  peace 
went  up  even  from  lovers  of  the  Union  whose 
hearts  had  failed. 

Meanwhile,  the  brilliant  strategist  in  Georgia 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  247 

was  pressing  his  drive  for  political  as  well  as 
for  military  effect.  To  rouse  those  Unionists  who 
had  lost  heart  was  part  of  his  purpose  when  he 
hurled  his  columns  against  Atlanta,  from  which 
Hood  was  driven  in  one  of  the  most  disastrous  of 
Confederate  defeats.  On  the  3rd  of  September 
Lincoln  issued  a  proclamation  appointing  a  day 
of  thanksgiving  for  these  great  victories  of  Sher 
man  and  Farragut. 

On  that  day,  it  would  seem,  the  tide  turned  in 
Northern  politics.  Some  historians  are  content 
with  Atlanta  as  the  explanation  of  all  that  fol 
lowed;  but  there  are  three  separate  events  of  im 
portance  that  now  occurred  as  incidents  in  the 
complicated  situation.  In  the  first  place,  three 
weeks  later  the  radical  opposition  had  collapsed; 
the  plan  for  a  new  convention  was  abandoned; 
the  Vindictive  leaders  came  out  in  support  of 
Lincoln.  Almost  simultaneously  occurred  the  re 
maining  two  surprising  events.  Fremont  with 
drew  from  his  candidacy  in  order  to  do  his  "part 
toward  preventing  the  election  of  the  Democratic 
candidate."  And  Lincoln  asked  for  the  resigna 
tion  of  a  member  of  his  Cabinet,  Postmaster- 
General  Montgomery  Blair,  who  was  the  especial 
enemy  of  the  Vindictives. 


248  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

The  official  biographers  of  Lincoln1  keep  these 
three  events  separate.  They  hold  that  Blair's  re 
moval  was  wholly  Lincoln's  idea,  and  that  from 
chivalrous  reasons  he  would  not  abandon  his 
friend  as  long  as  he  seemed  to  be  losing  the  game. 
The  historian  Rhodes  writes  confidently  of  a 
bargain  with  Fremont,  holding  that  Blair  was 
removed  to  terminate  a  quarrel  with  Fremont 
which  dated  back  even  to  his  own  removal  in 
1861.  A  possible  third  theory  turns  upon  Chase, 
whose  hostility  to  Blair  was  quite  equal  to  that 
of  the  ill-balanced  Fremont.  It  had  been  stimu 
lated  the  previous  winter  by  a  fierce  arraignment 
of  Chase  made  by  Blair's  brother  in  Congress,  in 
which  Chase  was  bluntly  accused  of  fraud  and  of 
making  money,  or  allowing  his  friends  to  make 
money,  through  illicit  trade  in  cotton.  And  Chase 
was  a  man  of  might  among  the  Vindictives.  The 
intrigue,  however,  never  comes  to  the  foreground 
in  history,  but  lurks  in  the  background  thick  with 
shadows.  Once  or  twice  among  those  shadows 
we  seem  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  figure  of 
Thurlow  Weed,  the  master-politician  of  the  time. 
Taking  one  thing  with  another,  we  may  risk  the 
guess  that  somehow  the  two  radical  groups  which 

1  His  private  secretaries,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay. 


THURLOW  WEED 

Photograph  by  Brady.     In  the  collection  of  L.  C.  Handy,  Wash 
ington. 


HORACE  GREELEY 
Photograph  by  Sarony. 


248  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

The  official  biographers  of  Lincoln*  ke 
three  events  separate.  They  hold  that  Bl 
moval  was  wholly  Lincoln's  idea,  ami  th 
chivalrous  reasons  he  would  not  ah*ft< 
friend  as  long  as  he  seemed  to  be  losing  'H 
The  historian  Rhodes  writes  confidentl 
bargain  with  FWufflff?  HHfiffS^hat 

-iknVf  ,vba«H  .')  ..1  lo  noiJoplIojxoilJ  ol     .v>nfl  v/l 
.noJ^ni 

which  dated  back  even  to  his  own  removal  in 
1861.  A  possible  third  theory  turns  upon  Chase, 
whose  hostility  to  Blair  was  quite  equal  to  that 
of  the  ill-balanced  Fremont.  It  had  been  stimu 
lated  the  previous  winter  by  a  fierce  arraignment 
of  Chase  made  by  Blair's  brother  in  Congress,  in 
which  Chase  was  bluntly  accused  of  fraud  and  of 
making  money,  or  allowing  his  friends  to  make 
money,  through  illicit  trade  in  cotton.  And  Chase 
was  a  man  of  might  among  the  Vindictive^.  The 
intrigue,  however,  never  comes  to  the  foreground 
in  history,  but  lurks  in  the  background  thick  with 
shadows.  Once  or  twice  among  those  shadows 
we  seem  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  figure  of 

T&ia&AO  ^OK5\0\l 

Thurlow  Weed,  the  master-politician  of  the  time. 
Taking  one  thing. vfflU"  '*'  "Il'r4"  e  may  risk  the 
guess  that  somehow  the  two  radical  groups  which 

1  H>9  private  secretaries,  John  0.  Nicohty  and  John  Hay 


THE  PLEBISCITE  OF  1864  249 

were  both  relentless  against  Blair  were  led  to 
pool  their  issues,  and  that  Blair's  removal  was  the 
price  Lincoln  paid  not  to  one  faction  of  radicals 
but  to  the  whole  unmerciful  crowd. 

Whatever  complex  of  purposes  lay  back  of  the 
triple  coincidence,  the  latter  part  of  September 
saw  a  general  reunion  of  the  factions  within  the 
Union  Party,  followed  by  a  swift  recovery  of 
strength.  When  the  election  came,  Lincoln  re 
ceived  an  electoral  vote  of  212  against  21,  and  a 
popular  vote  of  2,330,552  against  1,835,985. 

The  inevitable  question  arises  as  to  what  was 
the  real  cause  of  this  success.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  political  campaign  contained  some  adroit 
strategy;  that  Sherman  was  without  doubt  an 
enormous  factor;  that  the  Democrats  made  nu 
merous  blunders;  and  that  the  secret  societies 
had  an  effect  other  than  they  intended.  However, 
the  real  clue  seems  to  be  found  in  one  sentence 
from  a  letter  written  by  Lowell  to  Motley  when 
the  outlook  for  his  party  was  darkest:  "The 
mercantile  classes  are  longing  for  peace,  but  I 
believe  that  the  people  are  more  firm  than  ever." 
Of  the  great,  silent  mass  of  the  people,  the  true 
temper  seems  to  be  struck  off  in  a  popular  poem 
of  the  time,  written  in  response  to  one  of  the  calls 


250  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

for  more  troops,  a  poem  with  refrains  built  on  the 
model  of  this  couplet: 

We're  coming  from  the  hillside,  we're  coming  from 

the  shore, 
We're  coming,  Father  Abraham,  six  hundred  thousand 

more. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS 

THE  victory  of  the  Union  Party  in  November 
enabled  Lincoln  to  enjoy  for  a  brief  period  of  his 
career  as  President  what  may  be  thought  of  as  a 
lull  in  the  storm.  He  knew  now  that  he  had  at 
last  built  up  a  firm  and  powerful  support.  With 
this  assured,  his  policy,  both  domestic  and  for 
eign —  the  key  to  which  was  still  the  blockade — 
might  be  considered  victorious  at  all  points.  There 
remains  to  be  noticed,  however,  one  event  of  the 
year  1864  which  was  of  vital  importance  in  main 
taining  the  blockade. 

It  is  a  principle  of  international  law  that  a 
belligerent  must  itself  attend  to  the  great  task 
of  suppressing  contraband  trade  with  its  enemy. 
Lincoln  was  careful  to  observe  this  principle. 
Though  British  merchants  were  frankly  specu 
lating  in  contraband  trade,  he  made  no  demand 
upon  the  British  Government  to  relieve  him  of  the 

251 


252  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

difficulty  of  stopping  it.  England  also  took  the 
legitimate  position  under  international  law  and 
warned  her  merchants  that,  while  it  was  none  of 
the  Government's  business  to  prevent  such  trade, 
they  practised  it  at  their  own  risk,  subject  to  well- 
understood  penalties  agreed  upon  among  nations. 
The  merchants  nevertheless  continued  to  take 
the  risk,  while  both  they  and  the  authorities 
of  the  Confederacy  thought  they  saw  a  way  of 
minimizing  the  danger.  Instead  of  shipping  sup 
plies  direct  to  the  Confederate  ports  they  shipped 
them  to  Matamoros,  in  Mexico,  or  to  the  West 
Indies.  As  these  ports  were  in  neutral  territory, 
the  merchants  thought  their  goods  would  be  safe 
against  capture  until  they  left  the  Mexican  or 
West  Indian  port  on  their  brief  concluding  passage 
to  the  territory  of  the  Confederacy.  Nassau,  then 
a  petty  West  India  town,  was  the  chief  depot  of 
such  trade  and  soon  became  a  great  commercial 
center.  To  it  came  vast  quantities  of  European 
goods  which  were  then  transferred  to  swift,  small 
vessels,  or  "blockade-runners,"  which  took  a 
gambler's  chance  and  often  succeeded  in  eluding 
the  Federal  patrol  ships  and  in  rushing  their 
cargoes  safe  into  a  Confederate  port. 

Obviously,  it  was  a  great  disadvantage  to  the 


LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS        253 

United  States  to  allow  contraband  supplies  to  be 
accumulated,  without  interference,  close  to  the 
blockaded  coast,  and  the  Lincoln  Government 
determined  to  remove  this  disadvantage.  With 
this  end  in  view  it  evoked  the  principle  of  the 
continuous  voyage,  which  indeed  was  not  new, 
but  which  was  destined  to  become  fixed  in  inter 
national  law  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  American  cruisers  were  instructed  to  stop 
British  ships  sailing  between  the  British  ports  of 
Liverpool  and  Nassau;  they  were  to  use  the  re 
cognized  international  rights  of  visit  and  search; 
and  if  there  was  evidence  that  the  cargo  was  not 
destined  for  actual  consumption  at  Nassau,  they 
were  to  bring  the  ship  into  an  American  port  to 
be  dealt  with  by  an  American  prize  court.  When 
such  arrests  began,  the  owners  clamored  to  the 
British  Government,  and  both  dealers  in  contra 
band  and  professional  blockade-runners  worked 
themselves  into  a  fury  because  American  cruisers 
watched  British  ports  and  searched  British  ships 
on  the  high  seas.  With  regard  to  this  matter, 
the  British  Government  and  the  Government  at 
Washington  had  their  last  important  correspond 
ence  during  the  war.  The  United  States  stood 
firm  for  the  idea  that  when  goods  were  ultimately 


254  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

intended  for  the  Confederacy,  no  matter  how 
roundabout  the  journey,  they  could  be  consid 
ered  as  making  a  single  continuous  voyage  and 
were  liable  to  capture  from  the  day  they  left 
Liverpool.  Early  in  1865,  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  fully  developed  the  prin 
ciple  of  continuous  voyage  in  four  celebrated 
cases  that  are  now  among  the  landmarks  of  in 
ternational  law.1 

This  was  the  last  step  in  making  the  block 
ade  effective.  Thereafter,  it  slowly  strangled  the 
South.  The  Federal  armies  enormously  over 
matched  the  Southern,  and  from  November,  1864, 
their  continuance  in  the  field  was  made  sure. 
Grim  work  still  lay  before  Lincoln,  but  the  day 
of  anxiety  was  past.  In  this  moment  of  compara 
tive  ease,  the  aged  Chief  Justice  Taney  died,  and 
Lincoln  appointed  to  that  high  position  his  un 
generous  rival,  Chase. 

Even  now  Lincoln  had  not  established  himself  as 
a  leader  superior  to  party,  but  he  had  the  satis 
faction,  early  in  1865,  of  seeing  the  ranks  of  the 
opposition  begin  to  break.  Naturally,  the  Thir 
teenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  abolishing 

1  The  Great  War  has  once  again  led  to  controversy  over  this 
subject,  so  vital  to  neutral  states. 


LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS        255 

slavery  throughout  the  United  States,  appeared 
to  Lincoln  as  in  a  way  the  consummation  of  his 
labors.  When  the  House  voted  on  the  resolu 
tion  to  send  this  amendment  to  the  States,  several 
Democrats  joined  the  government  forces.  Two 
nights  afterward,  speaking  to  a  serenading  party 
at  the  White  House,  Lincoln  made  a  brief  speech, 
part  of  which  is  thus  reported  by  his  secretaries: 
"He  thought  this  measure  was  a  very  fitting  if 
not  an  indispensable  adjunct  to  the  winding  up  of 
the  great  difficulty.  He  wished  the  reunion  of  all 
the  States  perfected,  and  so  effected  as  to  remove 
all  causes  of  disturbance  in  the  future;  and  to 
attain  this  end,  it  was  necessary  that  the  original 
disturbing  cause  should,  if  possible,  be  rooted  out." 
An  event  which  in  its  full  detail  belongs  to  Con 
federate  rather  than  to  Union  history  took  place 
soon  after  this.  At  Hampton  Roads,  Lincoln  and 
Seward  met  Confederate  commissioners  who  had 
asked  for  a  parley  with  regard  to  peace.  Nothing 
came  of  the  meeting,  but  the  conference  gave  rise 
to  a  legend,  false  in  fact  and  yet  true  in  spirit,  ac 
cording  to  which  Lincoln  wrote  on  a  sheet  of 
paper  the  word  "Union, "  pushed  it  across  to  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens  and  said,  "Write  under  that 
anything  you  please." 


256  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

This  fiction  expresses  Lincoln's  attitude  toward 
the  sinking  Confederacy.  On  his  return  from 
Hampton  Roads  he  submitted  to  his  Cabinet  a 
draft  of  a  message  which  he  proposed  to  send  to 
Congress.  He  recommended  the  appropriation  of 
$400,000,000  to  be  distributed  among  the  slave 
states  on  condition  that  war  cease  before  April  1, 
1865.  Not  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  approved.  His 
secretary,  Mr.  Nicolay,  writes:  "The  President,  in 
evident  surprise  and  sorrow  at  the  want  of  states 
manlike  liberality  shown  by  his  executive  council, 
folded  and  laid  away  the  draft  of  his  message.  .  .  . 
With  a  deep  sigh  he  added,  'But  you  are  all  op 
posed  to  me,  and  I  will  not  send  the  message.' ': 

His  second  inauguration  passed  without  striking 
incidents.  Chase,  as  Chief  Justice,  administered 
the  oath.  The  second  inaugural  address  contained 
words  which  are  now  famous:  "With  malice  to 
wards  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with  firmness  in 
the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up 
the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall 
have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and  his 
orphan  —  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish 
a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves,  and 
with  all  nations." 


LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS        257 

That  gigantic  system  of  fleets  and  armies,  the 
creation  of  which  was  due  to  Lincoln,  was  closing 
tight  around  the  dying  Confederacy.  Five  weeks 
after  the  inauguration  Lee  surrendered,  and  the 
war  was  virtually  at  an  end.  What  was  to  come 
after  was  inevitably  the  overshadowing  topic  of 
the  hour.  Many  anecdotes  represent  Lincoln,  in 
these  last  few  days  of  his  life,  as  possessed  by  a 
high  though  melancholy  mood  of  extreme  mercy. 
Therefore,  much  has  been  inferred  from  the  follow 
ing  words,  in  his  last  public  address,  made  on  the 
night  of  the  llth  of  April:  "In  the  present  situa 
tion,  as  the  phrase  goes,  it  may  be  my  duty  to 
make  some  new  announcement  to  the  people  of 
the  South.  I  am  considering  and  shall  not  fail 
to  act  when  action  shall  be  proper." 

What  was  to  be  done  for  the  South,  what  treat 
ment  should  be  accorded  the  Southern  leaders, 
engrossed  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  at  the 
meeting  on  the  14th  of  April,  which  was  destined 
to  be  their  last.  Secretary  Welles  has  preserved 
the  spirit  of  the  meeting  in  a  striking  anecdote. 
Lincoln  said  that  no  one  need  expect  he  would 
"take  any  part  in  hanging  or  killing  those  men, 
even  the  worst  of  them.  Frighten  them  out  of  the 
country,  open  the  gates,  let  down  the  bars,  scare 

XI 


258  LINCOLN  AND  THE  UNION 

them  off,"  said  he,  throwing  up  his  hands  as  if 
scaring  sheep.  "Enough  lives  have  been  sacrificed ; 
we  must  extinguish  our  resentments  if  we  expect 
harmony  and  union." 

While  Lincoln  was  thus  arming  himself  with 
a  valiant  mercy,  a  band  of  conspirators  at  an 
obscure  boarding-house  in  Washington  were  plan 
ning  his  assassination.  Their  leader  was  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  an  actor,  brother  of  the  much  abler 
Edwin  Booth.  There  seems  little  doubt  that  he 
was  insane.  Around  him  gathered  a  small  group 
of  visionary  extremists  in  whom  much  brooding 
upon  Southern  wrongs  had  produced  an  unbal 
anced  condition.  Only  a  morbid  interest  can  at 
tach  today  to  the  strange  cunning  with  which 
Booth  laid  his  plans,  thinking  of  himself  all  the 
while  as  a  reincarnation  of  the  Roman  Brutus. 

On  the  night  of  the  14th  of  April,  the  President 
attended  a  performance  of  Our  American  Cousin. 
While  the  play  was  in  progress,  Booth  stole  into 
the  President's  box,  came  close  behind  him,  and 
shot  him  through  the  head.  Lincoln  never  spoke 
again  and,  shortly  after  seven  next  morning,  ceased 
breathing. 

At  the  same  time,  a  futile  attempt  was  made 
upon  the  life  of  Seward.  Booth  temporarily 


LINCOLN'S  FINAL  INTENTIONS        259 

escaped.    Later  he  was  overtaken  and  shot.     His 
accomplices  were  hanged. 

The  passage  of  sixty  years  has  proved  fully 
necessary  to  the  placing  of  Lincoln  in  historic  per 
spective.  No  President,  in  his  own  time,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Washington,  was  so  bitterly 
hated  and  so  fiercely  reviled.  On  the  other  hand, 
none  has  been  the  object  of  such  intemperate 
hero-worship.  However,  the  greatest  of  the  land 
were,  in  the  main,  quick  to  see  him  in  perspective 
and  to  recognize  his  historic  significance.  It  is 
recorded  of  Davis  that  in  after  days  he  paid  a 
beautiful  tribute  to  Lincoln  and  said,  "Next  to 
the  destruction  of  the  Confederacy,  the  death  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  darkest  day  the  South 
has  known." 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

THERE    are    two    general    histories,    of    conspicuous 
ability,  that  deal  with  this  period: 

J.  F.  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States  from  the 
Compromise  of  1850,  7  vols.  (1893-1906),  and  J.  B. 
McMastcr,  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States, 
7  vols.  (1883-1912) .  McMaster  has  the  more  "  modern  " 
point  of  view  and  is  excellent  but  dry,  without  any 
sense  of  narrative.  Rhodes  has  a  somewhat  older  point 
of  view.  For  example,  he  makes  only  a  casual  reference, 
in  a  quotation,  to  the  munitions  problem  of  1861, 
though  analyzing  with  great  force  and  candor  such 
constitutional  issues  as  the  arrests  under  the  suspen 
sion  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The  other  strong 
points  in  his  work  are  its  sense  of  narrative,  its  freedom 
from  hero-worship,  its  independence  of  conventional 
views  of  Northern  leaders.  As  to  the  South,  it  suffers 
from  a  certain  narrowness  of  vision  due  to  the  com 
parative  scantiness  of  the  material  used.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  McMaster. 

For  Lincoln,  there  is  no  adequate  brief  biography. 
Perhaps  the  best  is  the  most  recent,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
by  Lord  Charnwood  (Makers  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
1917).  It  has  a  kind  of  cool  detachment  that  hardly 
any  biographer  had  shown  previously,  and  yet  this 
coolness  is  joined  with  extreme  admiration.  Short 
biographies  worth  considering  are  John  T.  Morse,  Jr., 

261 


262  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Abraham  Lincoln  (American  Statesmen  Series,  2  vols., 
1893),  and  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  2 
vols.  (1900).  The  official  biography  is  in  ten  volumes, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  a  History,  by  his  secretaries,  John 
G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay  (1890).  It  is  a  priceless 
document  and  as  such  is  little  likely  to  be  forgotten. 
But  its  events  are  so  numerous  that  they  swamp  the 
figure  of  Lincoln  and  yet  are  not  numerous  enough  to 
constitute  a  definitive  history  of  the  times.  It  is 
wholly  eulogistic.  The  same  authors  edited  The 
Writings  of  Abraham  Lincoln  (Biographical  Edition, 
2  vols.,  1894),  which  has  since  been  expanded  (1905) 
and  now  fills  twelve  volumes.  It  is  the  definitive 
presentation  of  Lincoln's  mind.  A  book  much  sought 
after  by  his  enemies  is  William  Henry  Herndon  and 
Jesse  William  Weik,  The  History  and  Personal  Recollec 
tions  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  3  vols.  (1889;  unexpurgated 
edition).  It  contains  about  all  we  know  of  his  early 
life  and  paints  a  picture  of  sordid  ugliness.  Its  re 
liability  has  been  disputed.  No  study  of  Lincoln  is 
complete  unless  one  has  marched  through  the  Diary 
of  Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  3  vols.  (1911), 
which  is  our  most  important  document  showing  Lincoln 
in  his  Cabinet.  Important  sidelights  on  his  character 
and  development  are  shown  in  Ward  Hill  Lamon, 
Recollections  of  Lincoln  (1911);  David  Homer  Bates, 
Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office  (1907);  and  Frederick 
Trevor  Hill,  Lincoln  as  a  Lawyer  (1906).  A  biblio 
graphy  of  Lincoln  is  in  the  twelfth  volume  of  the  latest 
edition  of  the  Writings. 

The  lesser  statesmen  of  the  time,  both  Northern 
and  Southern,  still,  as  a  rule,  await  proper  treatment  by 
detached  biographers.  Two  Northerners  have  had 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  263 

such  treatment,  in  Allen  Johnson's  Stephen  A.  Doug 
las  (1908),  and  Frederic  Bancroft's  Life  of  William  H. 
Seward,  2  vols.  (1900).  Good,  but  without  the  requisite 
detachment,  is  Moorfield  Storey's  Charles  Sumner, 
(American  Statesmen  Series,  1900).  With  similar  ex 
cellences  but  with  the  same  defect,  though  still  the 
best  in  its  field,  is  Albert  Bushnell  Hart's  Salmon  P. 
Chase  (American  Statesmen  Series,  1899).  Among  the 
Southern  statesmen  involved  in  the  events  of  this 
volume,  only  the  President  of  the  Confederacy  has 
received  adequate  reconsideration  in  recent  years,  in 
William  E.  Dodd's  Jefferson  Davis  (1907).  The  latest 
life  of  Robert  Toombs,  by  Ulrich  B.  Phillips  (1914),  is  not 
definitive,  but  the  best  extant.  The  great  need  for 
adequate  lives  of  Stephens  and  Yancey  is  not  at  all  met 
by  the  obsolete  works  —  R.  M.  Johnston  and  W.  M. 
Browne,  Life  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens  (1878),  and  J.  W. 
Du  Bose,  The  Life  and  Times  of  William  Lowndes 
Yancey  (1892).  There  is  a  brief  biography  of  Stephens 
by  Louis  Pendleton,  in  the  American  Crisis  Biographies. 
Most  of  the  remaining  biographies  of  the  period, 
whether  Northern  or  Southern,  are  either  too  superficial 
or  too  partisan  to  be  recommended  for  general  use. 
Almost  alone  in  their  way  are  the  delightful  Confederate 
Portraits,  by  Gamaliel  Bradford  (1914),  and  the  same 
author's  Union  Portraits  (1916). 

Upon  conditions  in  the  North  during  the  war  there  is 
a  vast  amount  of  material;  but  little  is  accessible  to  the 
general  reader.  A  book  of  great  value  is  Emerson  Fite's 
Social  and  Industrial  Conditions  in  the  North  during 
the  Civil  War  (1910).  Out  of  unnumbered  books  of 
reminiscence,  one  stands  forth  for  the  sincerity  of  its 
disinterested,  if  sharp,  observation  —  W.  H.  Russell's 


264  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

My  Diary  North  and  South  (1863).  Two  newspapers  are 
invaluable:  The  New  York  Tribune  for  a  version  of 
events  as  seen  by  the  war  party,  The  New  York  Herald 
for  the  opposite  point  of  view;  the  Chicago  papers  are 
also  important,  chiefly  the  Times  and  Tribune;  the 
Republican  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  had  begun  its  dis 
tinguished  career,  while  the  Journal  and  Advertiser 
of  Boston  revealed  Eastern  New  England.  For  the 
Southern  point  of  view,  no  papers  are  more  important 
than  the  Richmond  Examiner,  the  Charleston  Mercury , 
and  the  New  Orleans  Picayune.  Financial  and  eco 
nomic  problems  are  well  summed  up  in  D.  R.  Dewey's 
Financial  History  of  the  United  States  (3d  edition,  1907), 
and  in  E.  P.  Oberholzer's  Jay  Cooke,  2  vols.  (1907). 
Foreign  affairs  are  summarized  adequately  in  C.  F. 
Adams's  Charles  Francis  Adams  (American  Statesmen 
Series,  1900),  John  Bigelow's  France  and  the  Confederate 
Navy  (1888),  A.  P.  Martin's  Maximilian  in  Mexico 
(1914),  and  John  Bassett  Moore's  Digest  of  Interna 
tional  Law,  8  vols.  (1906). 

The  documents  of  the  period  ranging  from  news 
papers  to  presidential  messages  are  not  likely  to  be 
considered  by  the  general  reader,  but  if  given  a  fair 
chance  will  prove  fascinating.  Besides  the  biographical 
edition  of  Lincoln's  Writings,  should  be  named,  first  of 
all,  The  Congressional  Globe  for  debates  in  Congress; 
the  Statutes  at  Large;  the  Executive  Documents,  published 
by  the  Government  and  containing  a  great  number  of 
reports;  and  the  enormous  collection  issued  by  the 
War  Department  under  the  title  Official  Records  of  the 
Union  and  Confederate  Armies,  128  vols.  (1880-1901), 
especially  the  groups  of  volumes  known  as  second  and 
third  series. 


INDEX 


Abolitionists,    warned    to   leave 

South,   66;    desire  peace,   90; 

displeased  with  Lincoln,  187 
Adams,   C.   F.,   Ambassador   to 

London,  129,  169,  170,  228 
Alabama,  The,  ship,  179 
Alabama    delegation   withdraws 

from  Democratic  Convention, 

72 
Alexander,  Emperor  of  Russia, 

hatred  of  slavery,  180 
American    Knights,    Order    of, 

235-37 

American  party,  25 
Anderson,  Robert,  Major,  83,  87, 

88,  89 
Annapolis,  Northern    troops 

reach,  124 
Anti-Nebraska    party,    23,    27, 

28,29 

Antietarn,  Battle  of,  153 
Appeal  of  the  Independent  Demo 
crats,  22-23 
Atchinson,  D.  R.,  of  Missouri,  18 

(note) 

Baltimore,  Sixth  Massachusetts 
Regiment  attacked  in,  121 

Banks,  N.  P.,  29 

Baring  Brothers,  banking  house, 
169 

Bates,  Edward,  Attorney-Gen 
eral,  104 

Beauregard,  G.  T.,  General, 
scheme  for  Northwestern  Con 
federacy,  237 

Bell,  John,  of  Tennessee,  73, 
74-75.  80 


Belmont,  August,  78,  92, 
240 

Benjamin,  J.  P.,  of  Louisiana, 
68,69 

Black,  J.  S.,  Attorney-General, 
advanced  to  post  of  Secretary 
of  State,  86,  88-89 

Blair,  Montgomery,  Postmaster- 
General,  104, 108, 134, 247 

Blockade  of  Southern  ports,  173 
et  seq.,  251-54 

Booth,  J.  W..  258-59 

Border  states,  affairs  in,  145-46; 
Lincoln's  plan  of  freeing  slaves 
in, 185-86 

Boston,  attempt  to  rescue  fugi 
tive  slave  at,  27;  applauds 
John  Brown,  64 

Breckinridge,  J.  C.,  79,  80 

Bright,  John,  177,  228 

Brooks,  Preston,  attacks  Sumner, 
32 

Brown,  John,  raid  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  63-65 

Brown,  John,  murders  at  Pott- 
awatomie,  36 

Buchanan,  James,  nominated  by 
Democratic  Convention,  33; 
elected  President,  37;  changes 
attitude  toward  Southern  ex 
tremists,  47-48;  crisis  in  career 
of,  84;  message  to  Congress, 
Dec.  4,  1860,  85;  agitation 
over  South  Carolina  Commis 
sion,  87-88 

Bull  Run,  defeat  at,  146 

Burns,  Anthony,  fugitive  slave, 
27 


265 


266 


INDEX 


Butler,  B.  F.,  General,  refuses 
to  surrender  fugitive  slaves, 
184-85;  mentioned  by  Greeley 
as  presidential  candidate,  246 


Cabinet,  Lincoln's,  104-05,  116- 
117.132-33 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  3 

Cameron,  Simon,  Secretary  of 
War,  104;  political  rival  of 
Seward,  105;  national  figure, 
132;  grafter,  135;  as  a  politi 
cian,  142;  popular  rage  against, 
147-48;  nominated  minister 
to  Russia,  149;  appointment 
confirmed,  150 

Capital,  Northern,  economic  vas 
sal  of  South,  7;  joins  interest 
to  Republican  party,  43; 
interest  in  South,  77-78;  stand 
in  party  reorganization,  77-79; 
urges  against  war  and  confisca 
tion  of  debts,  91 

Cass,  Lewis,  Secretary  of  State, 
44;  resigns,  86 

Charleston,  relief  expedition  to, 
109-10, 112 

Charleston  Mercury,  70 

Charnwood,  Lord,  quoted,  183 

Chase,  S.  P.,  sent  to  Senate  by 
Free-Soilers  and  Democrats, 
23;  Secretary  of  Treasury,  104; 
political  rival  of  Seward,  105; 
national  figure,  132;  enemy  of 
Seward,  133;  estimates  of, 
192-93;  asks  for  bond  issue, 
193;  issues  Treasury  notes, 
194-95;  issues  paper  money, 
195-96;  leads  faction  in  Cabi 
net,  197-98;  resigns,  198; 
resignation  not  accepted,  198; 
returns  with  reluctance,  199; 
calls  Cooke  to  aid,  200;  advises 
establishment  of  national 
banks,  200;  conceit  of,  201; 
considered  for  presidency,  201- 
202;  resignatior  accepted,  203; 
possible  connection  with  Blair's 


removal,  248;  appointed  Chief 
Justice,  254 

Cheves,  Langdon,  quoted,  4 

Choate,  Rufus,  quoted,  36-37 

Cincinnati  in  war-time,  204-05 

Clay,  Henry,  24 

Cleveland  Convention,  233-34 

Cobb,  Howell,  a  Southern  leader 
of  Democratic  party,  40; 
attitude  toward  Kansas  ques 
tion,  42;  quoted,  42;  opinion 
on  Kansas  question,  46;  ap 
proves  curtailing  of  slave- trade, 
62-63;  bitter  against  Douglas, 
63;  resigns  from  Cabinet,  85 

Cobden,  Richard,  177,  190 

Compromise  of  1850,  failure  to 
solve  problem,  15 

Confederate  States  of  America, 
Davis  made  provisional  Presi 
dent,  96;  delegates  refused 
recognition  at  Washington, 
102 

Confiscation  Act,  Fremont  asked 
to  conform  order  to,  184; 
Butler  sustained  by  Congress's 
passing,  185;  second,  187 

Congress  of  U.  S.,  legislative 
battle  over  Lecompton  Con 
stitution,  49;  in  1859-60,  67; 
debates  as  to  responsibility  for 
delays,  149 

Conscription  Act,  154-56,  158- 
159, 160 

Constitutional  Union  party,  73, 

74 . 
Continuous  voyage,  principle  of, 

253-54 

Cooke,  Jay,  200 
Copperheads,  156-57 
Crittenden,  J.  B.,  of  Kentucky, 

92 
Crittenden  Compromise,  92,  93- 

94 

Davis,  H.  W.,  of  Maryland,  135, 
230,  231,  242 

Davis,  Jefferson,  Southern  politi 
cal  leader,  40;  opinion  as  to 


INDEX 


267 


Davis,  Jefferson — Continued 
creation  of  Kansas  constitu 
tion,  48;  gains  prominence  in 
Congress,  68;  attitude  on 
political  issues,  68-69;  ac 
counts  for  sectional  hostility, 
81;  willing  to  accept  Critten- 
den  Compromise,  93;  resigns 
from  Senate,  95-96;  provisional 
President  of  Confederacy,  96; 
tribute  to  Lincoln,  259 

Dayton,  W.  L.,  169 

Debt,  Southern,  to  Northerners, 
6,91 

Democratic  party,  in  1854,  19 
et  seq.;  endorses  Walker,  32; 
convention  at  Cincinnati,  33; 
support  of,  33-34;  conserva 
tism  of,  34  et  seq.;  attitude 
toward  Kansas,  34-35;  be 
comes  refuge  of  original  Whigs, 
37;  discord  in,  58;  machine 
holding  together  in  1859,  63; 
convention  of  1860,  70-72; 
break-up  of,  72-73;  Unionists 
of  North  belong  to,  74;  divi 
sion  of,  83-84,  85;  War  Demo 
crats,  89;  desire  for  peace, 
90-91;  anti-Southern  in  North, 
118;  convention  at  Chicago, 
239-40 

Donelson,  Fort,  152 

Douglas,  S.  A.,  motives  in  cham 
pioning  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill, 
16-17;  Democratic  leader,  19; 
typical  Democrat,  22;  de 
nounced  by  Appeal  of  the 
Independent  Democrats,  23; 
burned  in  effigy,  27;  a  master 
politician,  33;  upholds  popular 
sovereignty,  49;  problems  of 
reelection  (1858),  50;  attempts 
reconciling  Dred  Scott  deci 
sion  with  popular  sovereignty, 
52;  Lincoln  debates,  54-57; 
reflected  to  Senate,  57;  incurs 
anger  of  Southern  Democrats, 
63;  as  a  Unionist,  74;  presi 
dential  vote  for,  80;  joins 


Union  party,  89;  at  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  100;  confers  with 
Lincoln,  120;  announces  sup 
port  of  President,  120;  speeches 
in  West,  121 

Draft,  see  Conscription  Act 

Dred  Scott  case,  50-51 

Dupont,  S.  F.,  Rear-Admiral, 
174 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  183, 
188 

England,  relations  with  U.  S., 
176-82;  sympathy  with  South, 
177;  rejects  France's  proposal 
of  mediation,  180;  attitude 
toward  America,  180-83;  cot 
ton  famine  in,  189-91 

Everett,  Edward,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  73,  92 

Farragut,  D.  G.,  Admiral,  246 

Fessenden,  W.  P.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  203 

Finance,  National,  Treasury  un 
prepared  for  war,  193;  income 
tax,  194;  financial  crisis,  194 
et  seq.;  issuance  of  paper  money, 
195-97;  financial  legislation, 
197;  deficit  of  Government, 
199;  bond  sales,  199-200;  Act 
of  1863,  200;  direct  and  in 
direct  payment  by  the  people, 
214;  no  "economic  conscrip 
tion,"  215;  financial  policy,  217 

Fleming,  W.  L.,  The  Sequel  of 
Appamattox,  cited,  241  (note) 

Forster,  W.  E.,  177 

France,  considers  mediation,  180; 
attempt  in  Mexico,  224  et  seq. 

Fredericksburg,  Battle  of,  153 

Free-Soil  party,  22,  24 

"Freeport  Doctrine,"  58 

Fremont,  J.  C.,  nominated  for 
President,  31;  Lincoln's  treat 
ment  of,  145-47;  chief  in 
command  in  Missouri,  146; 
removal,  147;  issues  order 
creating  "bureau  of  aboli- 


268 


INDEX 


Fremont,  J.  C. — Continued 
tion,"  184;  nominated  for 
President  by  Cleveland  Con 
vention,  234;  withdraws  from 
candidacy,  247;  connection 
with  Blair's  removal,  248 

Fulton,  The,  steamship,  172 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  90 
Giddings,  J.  R.,  of  Ohio,  23 
Gladstone,    W.    E.,    speaks    of 
South    as    nation,    178,    182; 
opposes  Roebuck's  motion,  228 
Grant,  U.  S.,  General,  152,  246 
Greeley,  Horace,  desires  peace, 
90;  an  emotional  rhetorician, 
135;  denounces  Lincoln's  treat 
ment  of  Fremont  and  Hunter, 
187;    requests    mediation    of 
French    ambassador,    225;    in 
ranks  of  Vindictives,  243-45; 
suggests  another  Presidential 
ticket,  245-46 

Hampton  Roads,  meeting  at,  255 

Harper's   Ferry,   John    Brown's 

raid,   63-65;  arsenal   burned, 

122 

Helper,  H.  R.,   The  Impending 

Crisis  of  the  South,  66, 67 
Higginson,  T.  W.,  27 
Hodder,   F.   H.,   Genesis  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska       Act,       18 
(note) 

Holt,  Joseph,  Postmaster-  Gener 
al,  88 

Homestead  Act,  210 
Hood,  J.  B.,  General,  247 
Hunter,  David,  General,  186 

Johnson,  Allen,  Stephen  A.  Doug 
las,  18  (note),  57 
Johnson,  Andrew,  240 

Kansas,  rush  to,  26;  government 
of,  34;  influence  of  Dred  Scott 
decision  on,  51;  admitted  as 
state,  96 

Kansas-Nebraska     Bill,     cham 


pioned    by    Douglas,    17-18; 

origin,  18  (note);  an  effect  of, 

23;  opposed  by  Free-Soilers,  24 
Kearsarge,  The,  U.  S.  S.,  179 
Kentucky  remains  in  Union,  145 
Knights  of  the   Golden    Circle, 

234-35 
Know-Nothing    party,    19,    24, 

25-26,  29,  30 

Land,  Struggle  to  gain  posses 
sion  of  public,  7-8 

Lecompton  Convention,  Northern 
settlers  refuse  to  participate 
in,  46;  Buchanan  endorses 
constitution  of,  48 

Lee,  R.  E.,  in  command  of  Vir 
ginia  troops,  123;  appears  in 
vincible,  227;  surrenders,  257 

L'huys,  Drouyn  de,  French 
Foreign  Secretary,  181,  231 

Liberator,  The,  90 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  in  1854,  28; 
toasted  at  convention  in  Illi 
nois,  30;  quoted,  52-53; 
personal  characteristics,  53- 
54;  Douglas  debates,  54-57; 
censures  John  Brown's  raid, 
64-65;  nominated  for  Presi 
dent,  76-77;  wins  election  of 
1860,  80;  supported  by  Union 
party,  89;  refuses  to  accept 
Crittenden  Compromise,  93- 
94;  journeys  to  Washington, 
96-97,  98-99;  state  of  mind 
between  election  and  inaugu 
ration,  97-99;  inauguration, 
99-101;  period  of  probation, 
102-03;  attitude  toward  Se- 
ward's  actions,  114-15;  gains 
control  of  his  Cabinet,  117; 
calls  for  volunteers,  120,  121; 
anxiety  in  awaiting  relief,  123; 
history  of  North  merged  in, 
126;  estimates  of,  127-28; 
appearance,  128-29;  Adams's 
estimate  of,  129;  as  a  public 
man,  129  et  seq.;  as  an  oppor 
tunist,  133-34;  genius,  136; 


INDEX 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 
statecraft,  136-37;  statesman 
of  democracy,  137-41;  Letter 
to  the  Workingmen  of  London, 
139-40;  Gettysburg  Address 
(text),  140-41;  reaction  of 
North  against,  143,  144-45, 
147;  calls  for  further  volun 
teers,  152-53;  makes  use  of 
war  powers,  160-67;  blockades 
Southern  ports,  173;  slavery 
policy,  183  et  seq.;  reply  to 
workingmen  of  Manchester 
(text),  191;  letter  to  Chase, 
202;  renominated,  202;  op 
posed  by  Cleveland  Conven 
tion,  233;  opposed  by  secret 
orders,  237;  accused  by  Demo 
cratic  Convention,  240;  re- 
nominated,  240-41;  dispute 
with  Congress  over  recon 
struction  in  Louisiana,  241; 
disagreement  over  negro  suf 
frage,  242;  appoints  day  of 
thanksgiving  for  victories,  247; 
reflected,  249;  opinion  upon 
sending  Amendment  to  States, 
255;  legend  of  Hampton  Roads 
meeting,  255;  Cabinet  dis 
approves  draft  of  message, 
256;  second  inauguration,  256; 
last  public  address,  257;  as 
sassination,  258;  placed  in 
historic  perspective,  259;  bib 
liography,  261-62 

Lyon,  Nathaniel,  General,  146 

McClellan,  G.  B.,  General,  a 
military  egoist,  135;  appointed 
to  command  of  Ohio  militia, 
145;  delay  of,  148;  friend  of 
Stanton,  150,  151;  failures  of 
1862,  152;  nominated  for 
President,  240 

Macy,  Jesse,  The  Anti-Slavery 
Crusade,  cited,  23  (note);  46 
(note) 

Man  without  a  Country.  Hale, 
164  (note) 


Manassas,  Second,  defeat  at,  153 

Maryland,  Government  main 
tains  hold  in,  145 

Mason,  J.  M.,  capture  of,  175-76 

Massachusetts  Emigrant  Aid 
Society,  26 

Maximilian,  Archduke,  of  Aus 
tria,  229 

Mexico,  French  army  marches 
upon  Mexico  City,  224,  226- 
227;  crown  offered  to  Maxi 
milian,  229;  condemnation  of 
expedition,  230;  Maximilian 
enters  Mexico  City,  231; 
Washington  refuses  to  recog 
nize  government,  232 

Monitor  and  Virginia  (Merri- 
mac),  Battle  of.  152 

Morgan,  John,  General,  237 

Morrill  Tariff  Bill,  79,  96 

Morton,  O.  P.,  Governor  of 
Indiana,  235 

Moultrie,  Fort,  87 

Munitions  procured  from  abroad, 
143,  168-73,  175 

Murfreesboro,  Battle  of,  153 

Napoleon  III,  gives  audience  to 
Confederate  envoy,  180;  dis 
trusted  by  English,  182;  inter 
vention  in  Mexico,  224  et  seq.; 
offers  mediation  between 
North  and  South,  226;  fails  to 
obtain  aid  from  abroad,  229; 
changes  attitude  in  1864,  232 

New  York  City,  draft  riots  in, 
158-60 

New  York  Times,  quoted,  175 

New  York  Tribune,  90,  94,  159, 
187 

Nicaragua,  filibustering  attempt 
in,  32;  expedition  thwarted, 
62 

Norfolk  Navy  Yard  destroyed, 
122 

North,  attitude  toward  South, 
1-2;  labor,  2;  capital  opposed 
to  sectionalism,  5-6;  demo 
cracy  in,  6-7;  struggle  for 


270 


INDEX 


North — Continued 

possession  of  land,  7-8;  com 
plex  social  structure,  13-14; 
rushes  to  volunteer,  123-24; 
military  unpreparedness  in, 
142-44;  population,  168;  life 
during  war,  204  et  seq.;  busi 
ness,  206-09;  labor  situation, 
208;  charities,  209;  Western 
settlement,  210;  shifting  of 
population,  210-11;  factors  in 
efficiency,  211;  immigration, 
211;  work  of  women,  211-12; 
labor-saving  machines,  212- 
213;  agriculture,  213;  subscrip 
tions  for  relief,  214;  sacrifice 
of  luxuries,  214-16;  war  pro 
fiteering,  217-19,  221-23;  buys 
supplies  from  Europe,  219-20; 
prices,  223;  gloom  of  Septem 
ber,  1864, 246 

Palmerston,  Lord,  British  Prime 

Minister,  178,  180,  181,  182 
Pennington,of  New  Jersey,  67-68 
Pensacola,  Florida,  relief  expedi 
tion  to,  109-11 

Phillips,  Wendell,  90,  127,  187 
Pickens,  Fort,  108 
Politics,  in  the  South,  3,  38-39, 
40    et   seq.;   during   the   war, 
156-58;    see    also    names    of 
political  parties 
Pope,  John,  General,  135 
"Popular  Sovereignty,"  35,  48- 

50,51 
Port  Royal,  seized  by  Dupont, 

174;  base  at,  186 
Powhatan,  warship,  109,  110,  112 
President,  War  powers  of,  160 
Pugh,  G.  E.,  of  Ohio,  70,  71 

Ray,  P.  O.,  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  18  (note) 

Republican  party,  formed  of 
Anti-Nebraska  men,  27,  28; 
merged  with  Whigs  in  New 
York,  29;  part  of  Knpw-Noth- 
ings  join,  30;  first  national  con 


vention,  30;  campaign  of  1856, 
31-32;  Kansas  question,  35- 
36;  joins  iron  interest  of  North, 
43;  still  sectional  in  1860,  74; 
merges  with  Union  party  of 
1864,  74;  undivided,  75;  plat 
form  (1860),  77;  wins  capital 
interests,  78;  campaign  of 
1860,  79-80;  against  war, 
91;  for  sectional  compromise, 
91;  alignment  against  Critten- 
den  Compromise,  94;  gains  con 
trol  of  House,  96;  convention 
at  Baltimore,  240 
Rhett,  R.  B.,  3-4,  40,  82 
Rhodes,  J.  F.,  quoted,  164 
Richmond,  McClellan  checked 

before,  152 

Roebuck,  Edward,  227-28 
Russell,  Lord  John,  British  For 
eign  Secretary,  178,  181 
Russell,  W.  H.,  quoted,  204-05 
Russia,  rejects  France's  proposal 
of    mediation,    180;    liberates 
serfs,  180 

San  Jacinto,  warship,  175 
Sanford,  H.  S.,  169 
Schuyler,  G.  L.,  Colonel,  169,  171 
Secession  movement,  begins  in 
South  Carolina,  82;  five  South 
ern  states  follow,  95 
"Seven  Days'  Battles,"  152 
Seward,  W.  H.,  joins  Republican 
party,  29;  eminent  member  of 
new   party,    30;    quoted,    52; 
Republican  man  of  the  hour, 
75;  criticism  of,  76;  defeated 
in    nomination,    76;    debates 
accepting      appointment      as 
Secretary  of  State,  93;  accepts 
Secretaryship     and     opposes 
Crittenden    Compromise,    94; 
refuses  recognition  to  envoys 
of    Confederacy,    102;    enters 
into  private  negotiation  with 
them,  102;  character  of,  103; 
attempts  control  of  adminis 
tration,  104;  disapproves  Lin- 


INDEX 


271 


Seward,  W.  H. — Continued 
coin's  Cabinet,  105;  assumes 
role  of  prime  minister,  105-06; 
policy  of  non-resistance,  106- 
107;  part  in  Powhatan  affair, 
108-12;  Thoughts  for  the  Presi 
dent's  Consideration,  113;  ad 
vocates  foreign  war,  113-14; 
quoted,  115;  meets  master  in 
Lincoln,  117;  a  national  figure, 
132;  enemy  of  Chase,  133; 
futile  attempt  upon  life  of, 
258 

Seymour,  Horatio,  Governor  of 
New  York,  158,  160,  239- 
240 

Sharpsburg,  Battle  of,  153 
Sherman,  John,  of  Ohio,  67 
Sherman,   W.  T.,  General  sug 
gested   as   presidential   candi 
date,  246;  campaign  in  Georgia, 
246-47;     factor     in    political 
campaign,  249 

Slave-trade,  British  interference, 
with,  44;  prohibited  in  con 
stitution  of  Confederacy,  45; 
Southern  contention  over,  61- 
62;  stand  of  South  on,  66 
Slavery,  factor  in  evolution  of 
nation,  2;  forced  issue,  13; 
in  Kansas,  34;  no  binding 
prohibition  in  Northwest,  51; 
Russian  serfs  liberated,  180; 
Lincoln's  policy,  183  et  seq.; 
reconstructed  States  to  abolish, 
242;  Thirteenth  Amendment 
to  the  Constitution,  254-55 
Slidell,  John,  capture  of,  175-76; 

at  Paris,  181 

Smith,  C.  B.,  of  Indiana,  105 
Sons  of  Liberty,  235,  238,  239 
South,   attitude   toward   North, 
1-2;    labor    in,    2;    begins   to 
regard    itself    as    social    and 
political  unit,  2-3;  conflicting 
political  policies,  3-4;  indebt 
edness     to     Northerners,      6; 
struggle  for  public  land,  7-8; 
territorial  aristocracy  in,   10- 


11;  attitude  toward  blacks, 
11-12;  supports  Democratic 
party,  33;  conflicting  political 
factions  in,  40  et  seq.;  stand  on 
disunion  and  slave-trade,  66; 
sentiment  of  locality  in,  74- 
75;  population,  168;  problem 
of  treatment  for,  257 

South  Carolina,  secedes,  82-83; 
delegations  interview  Bucha 
nan,  85-86,  87-88 

Southern  Confederacy,  66 

Speed,  James,  104 

Stanton,  E.  M.,  Attorney-Gener 
al,  86,  88;  Lincoln's  Secretary 
of  War,  89 ;  succeeds  Cameron, 
105;  quoted,  115;  relations 
with  Lincoln,  150-51;  personal 
characteristics,  150;  appointed 
Secretary  of  War  (1862),  150; 
stops  recruiting,  152;  respon 
sibility  for  check  of  Northern 
enthusiasm,  154 

Stanwood,  A  History  of  the 
Presidency,  80|(note) 

Star  of  the  West,  The,  merchant 
vessel,  95 

Stephens,  A.  H.,  a  Southern 
Democratic  leader,  40;  defends 
negative  Democratic  position, 
42;  opinion  as  to  slave-trade, 
45;  hopeful  of  Democratic 
party  (1858),  58;  leaves  Wash 
ington,  60;  quoted,  66;  at 
Hampton  Roads,  255 

Stevens,  Thad,  148 

Sumner,  Charles,  of  Massachu 
setts,  23,  32,  91,  230 

Sumter,  Fort,  subject  of  inter 
view,  86;  garrison  removed  to, 
87;  effort  to  divert  President's 
attention  from,  108;  surrender 
demanded,  112;  fired  on,  118; 
surrenders,  119 

Taney,  R.  B.,  Chief  Justice,  50, 

161,  254 
Territories,  regulation  of  slavery 

in,  69-PJ 


272 


INDEX 


Thomas,  of  Maryland,  Secretary 
of  Treasury,  95 

Thompson,  Jacob,  Secretary  of 
Interior,  95 

Ticknor,  George,  quoted,  123-24 

Toombs,  Robert,  quoted,  12;  a 
master  politician,  33;  intro 
duces  bill  securing  freedom  of 
choice  to  Kansas,  34-35 ;  eager 
to  keep  Democratic  party  in 
foreground,  38;  a  Southern 
Democratic  leader,  40;  policy 
of  evasion,  41-42;  hopeful  of 
Democratic  party  (1858),  58; 
willing  to  accept  Crittenden 
Compromise,  93 

Trent  affair,  175-76 

Turner,  Nat,  Rebellion,  64 

290,  ship,  1781 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  Stowe,  32 
Union  party,  formed  by  War 
Democrats  and  Republicans, 
89;  composite  party,  240;  re 
united,  249;  victory  of  1864, 
251 

Vallandigham,  C.  L.,  case  of, 
162-67;  plans  dramatic  mar 
tyrdom,  238 

Vicksburg,  Southern  Commer 
cial  Congress  at,  61-62 

Vindictives,  faction  of  Union 
party,  242,  247 

Virginia  secedes,  122 

Wade,  Benjamin,  of  Ohio,  1, 135, 
242 


Wade-Davis  Manifesto,  242,  245 
Walker,  R.  J.,  45-47 
Walker,  William,  32 
Washington,     office-seekers     in, 

115;     described     by     Welles, 

115-16;  isolation  of,   123-24; 

Northern  troops  reach,  125 
Webster,  Daniel,  24 
Weed,  Thurlow,  91,  93,  248 
Welles,     Gideon,    Secretary    of 

Navy,  89, 104-05, 106, 109-10, 

115-16 
West  Virginia  becomes  separate 

state,  146 
Whig  party,  rival  of  Democratic 

party,    19;    prestige    of,    24; 

political    positivism    of,     26; 

renominates  Lincoln  for  U.  S. 

Senate  (1854),   28;   dissolves, 

29;  members  hesitate  to  join 

existing  parties,  31 
White,  S.  E.,  The  Forty  Niners, 

cited,  31  (note)   * 
Whitman,  Walt,  127-28 
Wilderness  campaign,  246 
Wilkes,   Charles,  Captain,   175- 

176 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  in  1916,  133- 

134 
Wilson's  Creek,  battle  at,  146 

Yancey,  W.  L.,  leader  of  South 
ern  political  faction,  38,  40; 
for  separate  Southern  com 
munity,  41;  commercial  con 
ventions  an  aid  to,  43-45; 
speech  in  Democratic  Conven 
tion  (1860),  71 


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